In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our short film is a documentary and we have decided to use and develop the conventions of real media products within this genre. The aims of our short are to teach and inspire the audience about the skateboarding subculture in London.
"Documentaries are a creative treatment of acutality." - John Grierson
This famous documentarian, known as the father of British documentary film, is a key historical figure in the development of the genre's conventions; we came across him while doing research into documentaries. The well-known quote above displays two conventions of documentaries, according to Grierson's theory: creativity and facts.
Grierson's principle suggests that documentaries are all about oberserving life, thus a convention to him is "raw material".
Grierson's development of documentary conventions encouraged us to do the same, as we used creative camera angles and shots that captured real life. For example:
"Creativity" was physically captured when we panned the walls of the graffiti in Southbank's Skate Park.
A creative over the shoulder and depth of field shot of a member of public watching a skateboarding video at the Slam City Skates Garda Event, Covent Garden.
"There are 6 types of documentaries." - Bill Nichols, founder of contemporary study of documentary film.
We chose to do a mixed documentary, sticking to the two types of documentaries out of a possible six: expository and observational.
The first style is mainly made up of on-screen text and voiceovers to speak directly to the audience; this is used at the beginning our film when we briefly talk about the history of skateboarding in the 1970's at Southbank Skate Park and how it has evolved since then. We recorded this using the mic setting on iMovie and chose a female voice to create a stark contrast to the subject of skateboarding that is predominantly male. This "voice of God" technique allows the audience to understand the scene with a descriptive narrative.
The second style is known as 'the window on the world' and therefore allowed us to incorporate real footage, which John Grierson believed is what makes a documentary more authentic; the social actors behave as if there are no filmmakers there. This is used throughout our documentary short as we filmed skateboarders and members of the public in their natural habitat by using the Canon DSLR to get clear quality from a distance.
Conventional archive footage we used from YouTube, displaying the Southbank skateboarding community in the 70's. Just like many documentaries, we only used extracts from the archive footage because the content is not our own and therefore can't use too much of someone else's work.
The structure of our documentary short film is also creative, as we take our audience on a physical journey into the world of skateboarding. This is demonstrated when we show the shots of the different transport we used: overground and underground trains. In order to achieve the overground shots Ashley strapped the Go Pro to her chest and captured the departing and arrival of two trains.
By documenting authentic, real footage we are using the conventional observational style. Documentaries are seen as non-fiction, so the audience expect the information to be factual based and interesting. Raw material also enhances the technicality of realism, which means the quality or fact of representing a person or thing in a way that is accurate and true to life. This is particularly key in a multitude of documentaries, like the short film 'The Lady In Number 6', just as it is in our documentary short, since we wanted to capture the community of skateboarders within London.
'What Moves You?' - Documentary Short Film
Here is an example of a real media product.
The expository documentary clearly uses a voiceover and on-screen text to relay information directly to the audience. This is form of documentary that many of us are most familiar with.
'Grind' - Documentary Short Film
Here is another example of a real media product.
This observational documentary effectively uses real footage to show and not tell, it thus invites each viewer to draw his or her own conclusions from the film.
'The Motivation'. which is a feature length film about skateboarders, was our initial inspiration for choosing the documentary genre. It interviews the lives of skateboarders and follows the challenges that come with being a part of such a daring sport. After watching the film on Netflix, we were encouraged to create our documentary short about the skateboarding subculture in London, whereby we wanted to capture the positives and dedication needed to skate. It also particularly inspired one of our main scenes: Slam City Skates, Shoreditch.
In order to develop some of the forms of this documentary style film, we documented an interview with an expert in the skateboarding field (Khi Graham) and asked 'Do you think dedication is important to be a skater?' The interview is presented i a medium close-up so the audience can see the interviewee's facial expressions and slight body language. The lighting is additionally high-key throughout the interview, signifying the brightness and positvity within the skateboarding community.
This was then accompanied with real footage of a skateboarder (Daniel Jacobs) doing a trick repeatedly in a long shot, while Khi Graham was talking; the camera shot emphasized the amount of energy and perseverance needed to do the sport.
The image to the left displays a long shot of our "real footage", which is typical of the observation style according to Bill Nichols because they establish the setting for the audience. This camera shot was key as it allowed us to document the small community of skateboarders in our local area of Lloyds Park, compared to the place defined as the "home of skateboarding" - Southbank, which has a vast and more diverse community, since it's where the sport originated.
This type of footage allows us as filmmakers to be seen as neutral observers.
Devlopment of Conventions of Real Media Products
'In-between Matters' - this skateboarding documentary short is a visual & musical experience about the connections between matters.
The conventional use of sound within this real media product is something we have developed within our own documentary short film, as we decided to edit in instrumental music (non-diegetic sound) from YouTube - a common trait amongst many all types of documentaries.
An example of this within our short is shown right from the start; we use up-beat, music to immediately engage the audience and provoke happiness, linking to the positive message we are trying to spread about the skateboarding subculture in London.
Another convention of documentaries is the editing technique of slow motion. This real media product uses this when the skateboarder does a trick, emphasizing the difficulty and skill of the daring sport. We additionally used this documentary convention within our short film as we used iMovie to edit in slow motion when Daniel Jacobs lands a huge "hard trick", after the interviewee Khi Graham talks about the dedication needed to be a good skater.
INSPIRATION:
In-between Matters' also uses close-ups of the skateboarder doing tricks. This inspired us to document close-ups of a few people within the skateboarding community in Southbank within our own short film. By using the Canon DSLR to create the best shots, we were able to experiment with the depth of field: we put the skateboarder doing the trick in focus to indicate their importance within the scene.
This demonstrates us as developing the conventions of this real media product.
This short from Vimeo inspired some of our editing decisions.
'Skatesian: To Live and Skate Kabul'
This real media product use a lot of on-screen text, linking back to conventional expository style documentary. We additionally use this convention within our short film.
The simple style of the on-screen text shown in the image on the right (a screenshot taken from 'Skatesian') is something we've mirrored in our short. However, we have developed this convention as we have used the same style and colour for our location titles and interview questions, instead of the real media product that uses the on-screen text for translations, as the young boy in the film speaks Kabul's native language - Dari.
Another generic convention of documentaries is the use of a location shoot, which is a shot taken from either outside of the building it's set in or just generally in the local area. This is used to engage the audience by establishing and setting the scene. For example, in our documentary short, we included a location shoot of both Slam City Skates Shoreditch and Covent Garden Stores. We decided to use this convention to set the scene of a key store known within the skateboarding community. The real media product 'Skatesian' uses quite a few location shoots to set the scene:
Here is where we got inspiration for our location shoot.
Fisheye Lens
A fisheye lens is an ultra-wide angle lens used to create a wide panoramic or hemispherical image. It has featured in many skateboarding documentaries; 'The Motivation' once again inspired us to use this conventional camera lens. The fisheye lens appears within our "home video" at the end of our documentary short film when Tamuka explains the title 'It's Not Raining' through a voiceover.
The first types of fisheye lenses to be developed were "circular fisheye" — lenses which took in a 180° hemisphere and projected this as a circle within the film frame.
These have a 180° vertical angle of view, and the horizontal and diagonal angle of view are also 180°. Most circular fisheye lenses cover a smaller image circle than rectilinear lenses, so the corners of the frame will be completely dark.
As you can see on the right, both the real media text and our documentary short film use this circular style fiseye lens to create the hemispherical view.