Issues From Filming
Tamuka's first film session at Slam City Skates was successful, but there was an issue with the camera. This issue was due to the GB of the memory card not being big enough for the camera, meaning it would only film for at least 30 seconds before cutting out. In order to try and deal with the issue, we had to keep stopping and starting when documenting. This had an impact on the chosen actor Khi Graham, as he had to stop and start after each 15 second period. In addition to this, sometimes when we were filming and the recording cut out, we missed some of our interviewees answers and had to ask him to repeat them.
However, Tamuka managed to edit the footage together in such a way that his answers looked as smooth as possible.
Issues with Memory Card
Small GB memory card caused filming issues.
Bad Weather and Low Battery
During our second film session at Lloyds Park, the weather caused a problem for us as we decided to take a chance and film after school at around 4pm, thus it was close to getting dark. Along with this, it started to rain which impacted on our session because it meant we had to cut the filming session short. Furthermore, the battery started to run low mid-way through the filming session, again impacting the timing of our documentation.
Despite the short filming session, we managed to still use some of the footage; it was incorporated with our footage from Slam City Skates when Khi Graham is talking about dedication.
Common Issues that Occur when Filming a Documentary
When filming documentaries there are common issues that may occur. For instance, people may not always want to be documented on camera so you have to be prepared for many knock-backs when asking the public if you can film them.
One issue we had was that when going to either of our skate park locations, sometimes there weren't always people there to document; it's all about luck and going to these locations on the 'right day' which is difficult to judge. This set us back in time as we would have to visit these locations a few times in order to achieve the best observational footage. As a result of our documentary short being the "mixed" type, it also relies on interviews and voiceovers, so we needed to make sure we documented enough responses and information along the way.
Interview Issue
During my film session (3) at our third location - Southbank Skate Area, I documented a skater's response to our outlined, scripted questions. Unfortunately there was an issue with the interview, as when I listened back to the footage at home I realised that you couldn't hear what was being said by the interviewee because the background noise was too loud and therefore overpowered the skaterboarder's answers. This was a problem; it resulted in us not being able to use the interview in our short film.
In spite of this, we decided to use what we could hear of the interview as the basis of our voiceover which we will make when all our filming is complete; we managed to pick out some of the key points he made about the skateboarding subculture in London.
By Ashley Fontaine
Here is the footage of the skateboarder I documented. In addition to the issue with the volume, there was also the added problem of the camera not being in focus when filming. This meant that the interviewee's face was slightly blurred and didn't look clear enough.
For the film, we thought we would be able to include a lot of professional footage of skaters that I am friends with. Unfortunately all of my friends are lazy and the weather was not always on our side, which meant it was a whole lot harder than we thought it would be to gather people together and get footage.
This meant that we had to go to skateparks directly and ask people we did not know if they'd be kind enough to let us film them in action. In general, we found that a lot of the better skaters did not like to be filmed. This however was not the case in Slam City Skates, as most of the people there were very nice and helpful.
By Tamuka Walker