Year 10 Unit 1: Lesson 14 November 11 2011.

Today was the final editing and screening date for our documentaries. I felt that our group honestly needed more time to edit, we still needed to include subtitles, credits, transitions and our archival footage. Robert and I came in during break and edited from there on. Whilst Robert and I edited, Kazia worked on another computer to create the credits and titles. Because we weren't all together, we didn't all get each other's views on what to edit out. Our whole documentary became 10 minutes long because of this.


All the individual groups in this film class all decided on various issues they felt strongly about. It was very interesting to watch a wide variety of them and I was very excited to see all of them.


Max, Alfred and Andrew D: Social Media 
I really thought that this group captured the sound design very well. They attempted to set the scene just by using sound (the chat noises and effects of Facebook) and no visuals. This really provided a good sense of what they're documentary was about. However, they could've filmed the "aftermath" of the bloggers (that didn't go on Facebook for 5 days) and would they do the strike again.


Chun Ngai, Andrew N and Abraham: Hong Kong's Waste
During the beginning, the voiceover was playing over a time lapse of Hong Kong's roads. I felt that this was really cool how they managed to capture Hong Kong being a very busy city in such a simple and not in a distracting way. The shots that were filmed such as the (lady spitting into the trash bin) were very captivating as they also matched the voiceover's content. However, they could've included more interviews because they only managed to get it from 3 people's point of views. A little of it lacked content and I felt they could've further gone into location such as Hong Kong's wasteland, even though I knew they weren't allowed to.


Isabelle, Ariana and Allegra: The Inconvenient Equality
I felt that this was one of the strongest documentaries of the group. This was not because of the filming but because they had a very strong and clear argument. They knew what they wanted and this was conveyed through the film itself. They included various color contrasts such as making the interviews black and white and the domestic helper's footage colored. This helped enhance the equality that these people shared which really helped convince the audience through a clear argument.


Erik, Harry and Justin: Searching For Somalia
I felt that the included archival footage in the beginning really helped properly introduce the theme and subject to the audience. However, I felt that their documentary lacked content and that they could've interviewed more people. Also, they could've interviewed the actual Somalian refugees that came to our school. They chose to include themselves into the scene but they didn't look entirely interested in it, which I thought they should've just focused on the interviewee instead. 


Jessica, Jade and Sophia: Age
I really enjoyed watching this group's documentary. They presented a clear outline of their subject and theme by including many interviews of people from various age groups. Their archival footage was actually home videos which I thought was absolutely cool but they could've included who the people in the scenes were. The whole outline of the film definitely followed the idea of "age" itself, by showing young people at first, then venturing off towards older people. Their music was great and suited the emotion of the film. Overall I felt this group did a really fantastic job and their subject was conveyed clearly. 


Isabella, Kazia and Robert: Chung Yeung Festival
The feedback from Ms Rosati had us very satisfied. We were worried that she might've not enjoyed our film because of how long it was. It was very obvious we needed a lot of editing to finish, and there were way too many unnecessary clips. She did enjoy the color contrast between the archival footage and the actual footage. There were grainy clips contrasted against high defined clips which brought out the "time" of the festival. At first I thought our conclusion wasn't strong enough but towards the end I saw through the reactions of the audience, that we really did capture the subject and conveyed our point strongly. 


Overall, I felt that this unit was a great experience. I have learnt so many valuable lessons on film and hope to use them in the future. Working with my group was very pleasant and I felt we had good teamwork and strong communication, I hope to work together with them in the future again. This unit really helped me enhance more knowledge and understanding on documentaries and sound design. I can't wait for our next unit!

Year 10 Unit 1: Lesson 13 November 9 2011.

Today we had a very hectic session because we had to finish editing this by Friday. Kazia and I first started cutting and editing the clips until I got called for my turn to present. Personally, I thought I did pretty good on my presentation but I could work a bit more on my knowledge on "camera angles and techniques". While I was presenting, Robert and Kazia worked more on editing the footage. After I finished, I went into the music room to capture the news report video on Jing and it worked successfully. Robert also stayed after school to work on it. 


Overall, I think we are a little behind and I'm not sure if we are able to finish in time. Tomorrow all of us are coming over at break and lunch to edit and I'm hoping we can finish on time. 

Year 10 Unit 1: Lesson 12 November 3 2011.

Today we continued our editing while Ms Rosati conducted some of the private presentations. Basically, for the whole lesson, Kazia and I edited a decent beginning with good background "wild sound". We didn't delete any clips, in case we wanted to use the sound for "wild sound". Unless our voices were heard in the clip, we would delete it. Robert was looking on how to convert movie files into the right format compatible for Final Cut Pro. All in all, we kept switching editing roles so all of us had a thorough involvement in the process itself.

Year 10 Unit 1: Lesson 11 November 1 2011

Today we were granted an extension for our Criterion A presentation. Because of this, Ms Rosati taught us more on what a documentary is and what is Film Sound and the different types of it. Most of these were re-caps of last year's work especially with diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The one I really found interesting and captured my attention the most was the foley sound. This is the act of recreating sound effects but not using the actual thing. I remember when I was 11 and watching the Academy Awards, the group/movie that won the best sound was from their foley sound. I can't quite recall what movie it was but I also remember that there was one scene where they had people tracking through the forests and the sound was actually from foley artists stepping on salad and lettuce leaves. I realized that these tasks aren't as easy as they look because they have to acquire the right sound to put forward the right emotion. 


Then we learnt about the different types of documentaries such as poetic, expository, participatory, performative etc. I've learnt that not all documentaries fall into one exact theme, but can include many elements of it. 


Overall, I thought this lesson really helped me understand more about sound design and it made me think how we could incorporate it into our documentary.