Production File / Treatment for documentary & podcast

 

Topic ‘identity’ – Daniel Jules

Basing the documentary on a close friend of mine, Daniel Jules. Skateboarder, filmmaker and producer, at the age of 17 he already had one of his skate video featured on ID Mag’s digital publication. This has lead his work to be seen by many across different platforms leaving him with more opportunities to display his work. His videos do not follow “generic/commercial” skate video style. It has elements of documentary, music videos and skating all merged into one that makes it the work of Daniel Jules.

 

Possible links

How having an interest in video making from a young age has given him a work ethic now that no other filmmaker can keep up with…

 

• When did discover that making videos could become a career?

 

-     Where are you from, and how did you get into skateboarding?

 

• Skateboarding has been the main substance of his work but now taking on music videos, how is the transition?

 

• What is it like working with “younger skaters” and how was it growing up with them?

 

 

• Opinion on skateboarding becoming an Olympic sport?

 

• Have you ever thought about becoming just a filmer, and sending the footage to someone else to be edited?

 

• When talking about your future films, who are you drawing inspiration from outside of skateboarding?

 

 

 

 

Equipment list

 

 

 

Tripod A necessary piece of equipment to keep my footage steady and frees up my hands to do sound at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

   Shotgun Microphone

Great audio often separates the pros from the amateurs. Having a shotgun microphone prepares you for almost every situation. It's perfect for setting on top of your camera or a boom pole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canon 550D

I chose this camera for several reasons,

I am experienced with

The camera already, great quality

In well lit situations, i.e. good

For me in this documentary.

Great audio often separates the pros from the amateurs. Having a shotgun mic prepares you for almost every situation. It's perfect for setting on top of your camera or a boom pole.

             

 

 

 

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8

With the wide aperture of f1.8, especially going from your typical kit lens which is usually f5.6, this lens gives you 3 stops or EIGHT times (2x2x2) more light coming through the lens opening. This allows you to use either a faster shutter speed and avoid camera shake, or a lower ISO and avoid the noise you get from higher ISOs, or a combination of both.

 

 

 

 

Research / planning / script

 

What is my film about?

 

Surface meaning – A young man growing up in London trying to find his way through his craft.

 

Deeper meaning – Does the path to success start from an earlier age than what we are told? Does education really hold everything necessary for succeeding in life?  

 

Questions to ask Daniel during the interviews

     -   How did your body of work start from such an early age?

 

• Skateboarding has now become an Olympic sport, will this be a positive or negative?

 

• Do you feel like you have to motivate the skater when filming?

 

• So do you ignore a lot of the new trends within skateboarding?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canon default 18-55mm lens

I used this lens for some shots because it fits more into frame. It may not have the best image quality but that’s what I had to work with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boom mic table stand

This helped me with the sounds, because I had to operate the camera and keep track of the sound levels, this piece of equipment meant that I did not have to hold a mic pole and it is less daunting for the interviewee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marantz PMD-660K

The pmd660 is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, but it has features that make more expensive, full-sized field recorders green with envy. It can run for hours on just four AA batteries. It records on compact flash media cards which you can find in any discount store, and will store more than 36 hours of mono on a single card.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Minutes with ODEN

 

 

Eliot opens the documentary with Oden’s owner, riding his bike to a secluded rooftop giving him space and time to think. This shot sets off the documentary showing his mind-set throughout the doc. It is about his relationship with the dog but also about how he deals with it and what life lessons the dog taught him.

 

 

Throughout the documentary Jason Wood (dog owner) is on his bike in most shots, this is because Jason finds peace in riding his bike, this is something that I would want to include, a hobby of reoccurring this that my mother does into my documentary.

 

Advantages

Eliot was contacted by Jason to document the story this gave him opportunity to tell the story while it was happening instead of trying to rein act it or just go off of Jason’s emotions.

Eliot is successful in this documentary because he represents the story in such a way, the viewer beings to learn and feel like they knew Oden.

My role

 

I had many rolls to fill in this production because I felt; the subject was too personal for me to work with anyone else from the college, and to play a part in my crew. For that reason it kept me busy, I had directed the video, sorted out the lighting when we were shooting indoors, contacted the cemetery to see if I needed permission to film there, they granted me access. I edited the video together having full control and say over what the documentary should look like; I guess that is the best bit about it.

 

 

Evaluation

 

I shot my documentary in an Observational style because the subject I picked has an interesting personality and I wanted to broadcast that through to the audience, the opening sequence consists music, fly on the wall shots and close-up to show the process of rolling a joint. I was hesitant to have this at the start of the doc for a few reasons; do I want the audience to make assumptions of the character? And is this suitable for my demographic to view? I didn’t want to follow conventional borderlines, because there are thousands of documentaries out there on the same subjects, I wanted mine to have a personal touch.

 

Using Scribble Animations helped me so personality as a Videography / Editor, this type of editing is also there to appeal to my demographic, this type of animation is used in lots of conventional Hip-hop music videos so having it in mine would show a bit of my personality as well as Daniel Jules’.

Connotations within the opening expresses to the audience that he’s creativity may be fuelled by smoking… The song that playing in the beginning was played by Daniel and mixed in, I did this so viewers could have an insight into the type of music he is into and make a quick judgement on if they will want to watch the rest of the documentary or not. I did not want the my documentary to have lots of text in the video because I feel like it takes away from the visuals,

 

On day 1 of shooting I went over to his place and set up the lighting, got rid of all natural light, used two Pro 160-LED lights, with plain white sheets to reflect onto the subject. I had Daniel Jules play video games in the background so he felt comfortable and at home, which he was… But once I have plugged my headphones into the Marantz MPD-660K I realised that the Xbox he was playing added too much noise for the interview to comence . So after the long process of setting up the lighting that took quite some time, and running through questions with Daniel we also realised that I did not have enough questions and did not plan enough.

I reached out to a few other students to gain feedback from my age-range and all the feedback was positive, but I still felt like the video was missing something, it took me a while to figure out what it was. I came to the conclusion that it was the lack of B-Roll footage, when he is talking about editing, skating and other topics that pop up I would have liked to have shot clips of Daniel out, shooting a project and or just him skating around and played with the audio, sounds of skateboarding down the street, all the sounds that within skating, especially with the audio equipment that the college have on campus for students to use. I feel if I did have the time to execute that part it would have drawn the viewers in even more and given an insight to the sensations that skateboarders feel when cruising around on their boards. 

 

While editing the footage and audio I wanted to keep it rather fast paced, I done this for several reasons, firstly, it represents the speed in which he lives his life, skateboarding and having deadlines for clients keeps you on you toes and curve balls will always be coming your way, I could have showed that process better in my documentary.

 

 

 

Timeline from Premiere Pro

 

Lots of fast cuts and cuts to music if gratifying for the viewer, for example if they know when the next snare in the beat is and there is a cut on that snare it brings pleasure to the viewer, and that’s why we watch videos online, to learn and for the satisfaction.

 

People have always told me that when you go out and shoot a documentary you should just pick your subject and the documentary will come to you, this is what happened when I approached Daniel Jules, I always knew he has a artistic and musical background but I did not know how deep the roots go.

I had set up an interview with his mother but due to timing and other circumstances I had never got around to it. But if I did get that interview it would have given another persons perspective on who Daniel Jules, this could have either benefited the documentary if done right or taken the audiences focus off Daniel and lost them during the process.

 

 

I wanted clear audio for my production so I could use it for both my documentary and Radio show, this was successful, I got all the audio I needed but due to recording external audio, I had to sync the audio and visuals together which was time consuming but not much of a problem. The problem I did have was, once the documentary was finish, I opened up premiere pro to export the video file, but the audio had shifted and could not be placed back in time, I can do the whole edit again but it would take too long consuming at this point in time, if necessary I can do it all again. Never has this happened with any of my past projects before. 

 

Radio

 

When recording audio for the radio show I found it was easier to uncut the interviews I got with Daniel and just add questions in, such as “What types of music were you brought up on?”  And this opened Daniel up to tell me about his mothers music career and the different genres that were always changing during his childhood.

 

The overall project went well in my opinion but if I had put more time into the planning I think it would have gone smoother. I have done a few of these projects now and I feel that I am getting into the hang of it and can see myself doing this as a career or something I would want to pursue in the future. I need to review my camera work though, and the composition is not industry standard. But I do see myself doing a documentary for FMP.