The pre production stage includes developing a main theme for your documentary as well as a story line, music ideas, camera shot ideas, sounds plans, locations reece, and a brief idea of how the overall documentary will look like. These will all be features that contribute to the way certain people are represented in the documentary, and will contribute to the general quality of the short film. Certain camera shots, such as low camera angle, can portray some characters as more important than others, therefore planning what shots are required are a key process in the pre production stage. Furthermore, menacing music can help illustrate to the audience that a subject is a negative one, and location can present certain situation as either good or bad. Generally the pre production process is important as it give as it allows production teams to have a base to kick off from.
Another key production process is the actual production process. This is where you conduct interviews with the specialist/ people involved in the subject of your documentary. The production process also consists f ensuring the sound quality is good and that it is easy for audiences to understand and hear what is being said. Establishing shots are taken to help the audience comprehend where the next scenes will be. Cutaway shots are taken of people doing other things so that the whole documentary isn't just the interviewee talking infant of the camera. An example f this may be of a musician playing an instrument whilst their interview plays over the footage like a voiceover. All archive footage and graphics are collected to use as cutaway shots to and all copyrights are cleared for the muse of particular sounds and music. Any other necessary process that are needed to be edited into the documentary are done in the production process as well.
The final stage involved is post production. This involved any editing that s needed. All the scenes recorded are blended together in a particular order so that a narrative is developed and a clear storyline for the audience is established. All voiceovers are edited in so that the running commentary matching the visual content being shown. The final cut is watched over and over again t ensure that it is of high quality and the directors and editors act as the audience so that they can review whether their message is being portrayed correctly.
Of documentary institutions make documentaries with the aim to rise awareness of subject or issues. Whether these issues are worldwide or national, the main aim to to inform and educate audiences about it. Interviews are conducted with specialist so that accurate information is presented to the audience.
Other documentaries aim to explore other cultures that aren't normally presented in the media. These type of documentaries are of ethnographic documentaries are show how other non-western countries live. Some documentaries are simply made for entertainment. Mockumentaries are an example of these, as they are normally comical and have the main aim to make the audiences laugh. However entertainment don't just come in the form of mockumentaries as they can also come in the form of an observational documentary. These entertainment documentaries re commonly known as human interest documentaries. Another purpose is simply to just uncover the truth behind controversial issue, E.g documentaries about 9/11 or crime documentaries. These type of documentaries often come in the form of docudramas.
The average budget for a professional looking documentary would be between £5000-£75000. The highest ever grossing documentary according IMDb is Fahrenheit 9/11. This hard a budget of $6 million, and in return, gained a gross profit of $199 million. The amount of profit is accurate to the amount of money spent on the documentary. The more money spent on the documentary, the more archive footage that can be gathered, interviews with better quality specialists can be conducted and the overall quality of the footage will be better.
In my opinion, i believe the greater difficult in making a documentary is stringing together an engaging narrative that also educated audiences at the same time. For a documentary to be engaging, it has to be presented in a natural way without feeling to formal r informative. However it is also vital to incorporate interviews and facts about the topic of the documentary, as well as archive footage and real life images to ensure that the audience gain knowledge, while simultaneous giving the documentary realistic and intimate feel.
No comments:
Post a Comment