This is our final documentary and thumbnail
This is my critical self reflection
In this particular project, we were instructed to make a crime documentary ranging between 3 to 5 minutes according to the brief shown by my subject Teacher, Mr Nick. The basic synopsis of the documentary would be that Bagus (my real name), a boy in high school who has feelings for her best friend, confessed to her but got rejected. And from then on what was originally a happy person turned to a sorrowful and miserable guy who ended up disappearing alongside his crush.
Before the whole project, each one of us did our own individual research on crime documentary openings. Same with everyone, all of us in the group did 5 crime documentary researches. Doing all this research was particularly challenging but everything was fun at the same time. Through the extensive research I have done, I have understood the aspects of a true crime documentary and its conventions. Camera wise, through my research I learnt that the camera angles in crime documentaries usually use close up angles in order to focus the shots to the emotions of the speaker, enabling the viewers to make a connection and experience the emotion that the speakers are going through. Medium shots are also used frequently in order to show the viewer the body language that the speaker shows, this too is also done in order for the viewers to further figure out the emotion that each of the speakers are feeling. We applied this finding to all of the interview scenes. As for the reenactment scenes and the establishing shots, we used long angles with static movements and longer shot durations to create more mystery through stationary movements, in which this creates the sense of nothingness, and gives the direct clue of the question,”did the crime happen here”, this is also done to create an eerie feeling through silence and the absence of activity in the shots, this was used in the filming of the establishing shots in Bagas’ house.
Through Mise En Scene, research of these documentaries pointed out the typical convention of dark coloured themes, from props, scenes and clothing. Conforming to these conventions were the best decision as we had all of the necessary equipment. The best examples of the mise en scene conventions are shown through Nicho’s interview scene, the dark lighting was intentional in order to create a sense of seriousness and an eerie feeling of the descriptions that Nicho has mentioned, this is further supported by the dark clothing that he used, this is used in order for the viewer to feel the negativity in Nichos’ emotion and description and create a further image of mystery and somewhat confusion. By doing this, we have successfully Applied a media Theory which is called five narrative codes by barthes in which we applied hermeneutic codes that involve the use of mystery in order to enhance the suspense aspect. This further supports the use of early research. On the other hand though, the two other interviewees were dressed to represent social groups and the general setting, which will be discussed in another paragraph. We still forced darker colours on each of the other interviewees. In which both Louis and Saka was wearing dark coloured clothing. An additional aspect was through acting, in which Nicho was instructed to talk at a slower pace as the scene builds on, this is also done to add the suspense aspect.
Through sound, I personally have researched documentaries particularly in American Murder, in which the music will intensify throughout the documentary itself the longer it goes, this will add the sense of suspense And mystery in which the viewers can feel some sort of anticipation. Youtube also helped our research as it enables us to identify that this is a somewhat fixed convention in crime documentaries. I, alongside the other people in our group, have used this information to give feedback to the sound of the documentary. Furthermore, our teacher has given extra feedback for us to build on and perfect the documentary.
For the part of editing, we have discovered from research that these crime documentaries use actual images and videos of the crime scene in order to add to the aspect of a realism this also gives the viewers a chance to visualize what has happened. This can enable them to guess what will happen next, this will keep the reader attached to the documentary and this will make them keep watching. We have used this research to our advantage as we haved used actual footage of me as the criminal.
For the things that we subverted, it is safe to say that the use of camera angles, as the typical conventions of documentaries include more movements e.g random movement have been shifted to more static shots, this can also, as mentioned, get the aspect of mystery and nothingness and could be as effective as random movements.
In our future project, I personally would add 2-3 more mini researches in order to know the broader aspects of crime documentaries.
Moving on to representations of social groups, we have decided to represent Indonesian teenagers with the age range of 17 years and in high school. We also aim to target both female and male audiences. The preferred reading that we strive for the audience to understand would be the fact that people handle rejections in different ways, not everybody can accept it, and that boys are stereotyped as naughty and deviant.
Through the visible elements, to represent the age range of 17 year olds, we picked young actors which are actually 17 year olds, and to represent the Indonesian side, we used Nicho’s part as a prime example of the use of the technical element of sound, in which he speaks fully Indonesian in the interviews. Furthermore,through Mise En Scene, Saka was using grey long pants, in which this only applies to Indonesian high school students as only they wear it. For gender in the aim of both genders being represented alongside their stereotypes in which girls are innocent and boys are deviant, we have a teenage, innocent girl playing as the girl who was murdered, And me as the deviant psychopathic boy.
We have decided to make the issues of murder and kidnapping as the main reading, in which we used Stuart Hall’s reception theory as we want to suggest that this is a very risky thing to do that will literally have very bad consequences, we wanted to raise awareness, that anything can happen and anyone can be anybody and not to trust everybody, we want them to decode the meaning that kidnapping and murder is obviously not a good thing to do. All of these visual and technical aspects mentioned above contributed to the building of suspense in the intro.
In audience engagement, similar to the psychographics and demographics of audience representation, we wanted to engage with Indonesian high school students who are 17 year olds, in which they like crime and mystery as their main genres to watch. This particular documentary will appeal to them as firstly as they are young, hormones will go crazy and teenagers will eventually learn how to date and fall in love, this failed and horribly wrong love story can relate to what is happening in their lives right now. This also goes in line with the issues of mental health awareness of teenagers right now, that rejection can take a heavy toll on their mentality and how they think of love, as proven by Bagus in the documentary. This also relates to the aspect of being Indonesian, as usually here, love stories are almost always romanticised in a very good and happy, or just borderline sad and emotional, but it does not always end that way.
In the topic of the uses and gratification theory primarily suggested by Bulmer and Katz, in diversion, as Indonesian love stories are usually very lovey dovey or just sad. We have conformed to diversion as we added the aspect of murder in a teenage scene, which rarely happens in Indonesia. This makes our product more unique and exciting for the Indonesian public to watch. And more generally all over the world, teenage love stories of 17 year olds dont usually include murder, we have included murder. Through personal identity in our product, we tried making Bagus a role model, this is evident through the accounts of his friends saying that he was a very good friend, but with a twisted turn in the end that he was a murderer. Through social relationships, we can prove that people with the same problems should be able to talk about it with a professional, or a friend to talk it out of their emotions, and through surveillance, we wanted to raise awareness of the insane things that people can do, and to look out on our lives.
Through thumbnail, we have used red, bold colours and black and white to attract the attention of the viewers, red connotes to blood and bold connotes to seriousness, in which this will catch their eyes almost immediately due to the slightly bright red and the contrasts of colours in black and white, and through hermeneutic codes, we did not even mention what even happened to them both in the intro.
Lastly, through the aspect of branding, firstly, branding is somewhat like a collection of our production output, packaged in an attractive manner to our audience. It is very important in communicating the value and credibility of the documentary. A good example is the thumbnail of the documentary. For the storytelling, we subtly hinted at the plot by portraying a smiling Bagus (me) as a main character with a black and white background that represents happiness. As the background gradually turns black, it reflects his transformation into depression and rejection. The slowly developing visual aspect of the thumbnail was in line with the flow of the documentary, starting with slow-paced dramatic moments highlighting the joyful experiences of Bagus:. His smile flickers out when the lighting reduces and the mis-en-scène itself takes on a generally darker hue as he takes on more serious themes. Since a thumbnail simply showcases what is to be seen before watching, attention is key from the very beginning.
This is one of the hardest parts of the project, I am not looking forward to doing this ever again. I dislocated my left shoulder while doing this and needed to do all this with one limb. Regardless, this somewhat helped me so i know what will be coming for me in the next project.
this is our sound analysis for the intro
As for the music I chose, I based of mainly from youtube. However before I started finding the music I asked our teacher if I am allowed to use copyrighted music or not. since most of youtube's music is copyrighted
This is the editing process of our documentary project that bagas made
Pre-Editing
Since the shots we took were using multiple phones, we as a group decided to make a google drive to easen up the collection process and so that we could review all the clips at once. This also saved my storage space within my phone as it was nearly at its limit, as all of the footage combined was around 6 Gigabytes while my phone was only capable of holding another 2 Gigabytes.
At the beginning of the week , when this project was introduced, I was confident that I could learn editing software within these months for this project. Davinci Resolve is an editing software that I chose at first. This was very new to me, usually I use my mobile phone to quickly edit things but since this is a big project I may want to switch over to using a desktop software. However, a huge problem was that I didn’t manage my time well, therefore I didn’t have enough time to really explore and dig deep into the application. Hence, as time was ticking and the deadline got closer I decided to switch over to capcut on my mobile phone. As I do have experience editing using this software.
Editing process
The first step I did was laying out all of the clips in order of the script, person by person. After that I matched up the audio with the correct clip and syncronized it with their lip movement. This is because we had a mic issue, the issue was not having an external mic, so we decided to use another phone to record the audio. The way I did this was by extracting the audio from the video itself, this is a cool feature I discovered in capcut while editing. Then I added pictures between the conversations, using things such as slideshows or screenshots of Bagus to make it more authentic and realistic. This feature of a crime documentary was also found in my research, the use of real life evidence .
Then I added finishing touches such as effects, for example the flashback I added a black and white effect that connotes Bagus’s hopelessness after the rejection. Increasing the dramatic effect. Another effect I added was vignette, this was to increase the focus towards the interviewees . The dark edges create a sense of claustrophobia which makes the audience feel more uneasy.
As well I added a blur effect towards the ending with a fade in transition as the flower drops, this is to make the audience anticipate on why the video was obscured and make them have to watch more to know what happens next.
Lastly, I added the subtitles for the videos. A reason why I did subtitles last is because If I wanted to adjust the clips, for example moving the audio forwards or backwards I have to push every other clip. This is because, to my knowledge, capcut doesn’t have a feature that allows clips to stick to their audio or effects. Hence it will be a hassle to adjust everything again when it's already in place. Therefore doing subtitles last would be the most efficient way to finish the documentary.
FEEDBACKS GIVEN:
A feedback we got from our teacher was that during a high angle shot when Nicho came out, the bed was in the shot making it not suit with the other clips. Therefore a solution we got was adding a split screen feature and cropping the clip so that the bed will not be showing. The other side was then used as a slideshow to show Bagus’s pictures. We as a team decided to keep this change by our teacher as we needed a way to put more pictures in the documentary, and this change helped us add more pictures.
Another feedback we got is the diegetic sound of the light turning off during the book closing scene. My teacher advised us to use the same sound effect for the light switch noise, we realised this was a problem as it made it as if the place was in two settings. In the end we were satisfied with this change as it now connects with the whole scene.
Lastly we got feedback about the ending. My teacher recommended putting a picture or video behind the text in the end, because the background was pure black. By adding the video in the end, eventhough it was blurred, it helps build the suspenseful mood making the text seem more ominous. Therefore we decided to keep this change .
SELF REFLECTION
Throughout the editing process, I assisted Bagas in giving feedback for the cuts and the effects in order to create the suspense. Overall, this is one of the most exhausting phases of the project as we needed the effects to conform to the stereotypes and conventions. The technical aspect was also hard as there were a lot of effects to discover and match.
these are the compilation of photos and moments we took while shooting behind the scenes.
What we did (how we set it up) in each image
Setting up camera angle before recording
Problems: We had difficulty finding the most suitable spot in the classroom to film the interview.
There were many items in the room which do not conform with our mise en scene requirements,
as can be seen in the picture above, there were loads of posters and colorful decorations on the wall.
If it were in the background, it would make the interview less serious and we didn’t want that to happen.
Solutions: We did trial and error by taking pictures of a person sitting on a chair at many different parts of the classroom.
Then at the end, we compared and saw which one looked the best. After we find the optimal spot, we use that for the interview.
What we changed: We changed the positions of the tripod to find the best appearance-to-angle ratio so that the interview looks proper.
What we kept the same: We used the same phone to record the scene so that the aspect ratio of the camera doesn’t change and to save time.
Setting up the microphone to get clearer audio
Problems: When we were about to record another interview at my friend’s house, we ran into a problem setting up the mic since we couldn’t put the phone near the actor.
So we had the idea of tying the phone to the actor’s body and hiding it under the hoodie.
However, the phone kept sliding down and we had to stop the recording for us to tie it again.
Also, after we recorded, the audio was a bit unclear and there were ruffle sounds caused by the hoodie.
Solutions: To solve the problem, we had to tie the fabric tighter so it doesn’t fall anymore and lift the phone higher up so it captures the actor’s sound better - which after we checked, this change made the audio clearer.
What we changed: We changed the tightness of the fabric so the phone didn’t move and lifted the phone higher.
What we kept the same: We used the same phone to record the audio so it’s all the same quality thus making the interview sound more consistent throughout the documentary
Self Reflection
This was fairly an easy part of the blog, as we only had to take photos of us doing the scenes and shots, this is very useful
in order to review and look back on the hardware that we used and it can be used for feedback on future projects, such as
location shots and angles.
This is our group's filming schedule for this documentary project made by Bagas
Reflection: In this part of the project I have improved my time management and coordination skills as I further learn the art of dividing my time of the hectic weeks and months that are present at the senior level of high school. Furthermore, I can apply this to the next project as I already know the necessities on scheduling a shoot (e.g, props are also noted, time is noted down to the limit). I also added some input on when to shoot and when are the best times and hours to fit people's schedule and to fit the much needed Mise-En-Scene of setting. Personally, we primarily faced challenges that involved fitting our schedules into recording as not all of us can on that designated day (including me), but we solved it by effective communication in between our members and we managed to select some shooting days. I feel that this is one of the most hectic and confusing parts of the project as we had to free our hectic schedules.
These following are the location scouting we have done which also includes the risk assesement that Saka made.
Location 2
Location 3
Location 4
