Lecture Evaluations

Week 1

Lecture Title: Introduction to Module

Within this lecture, we were introduced to the module and the assessment criteria we would produce. We looked at examples of winning entries from last year, as influences of our own projects. We then formed groups of our own and started brainstorming idea's for ourselves.

Notes:

How do we catagorise a documentary?
The Poetic mode - "Resembling frgments of the world, a transformation on historical materical into a more abstract, lyrical form. It was associated with the 1920's and consisted of modernist idea's".
The Expositary mode - "Filmed with direct address with social issues assembled into an argumentative frame. These documentaries usually consist with a "voice by god" narration with some use of rhetoric and polemic surrounding WW2".
The Observational mode (Fly-On-The-Wall) - "This becmase known once technology was advanced in the 1920's to the 1930's when camera's becamse smaller and lighter. They were able to document life in a less intrusive manner where they had less control over lighting. Subjects were allowed to act freely and also left the documentarists free to record without interacting with the subjects".
The Participatory mode - "The encounter between the film maker and subject is recorded as the film makes actively engages with the subject who is aware of their presence. They ask questions of their subject sharing experiences with them and are heavily reliant on witnesses".
The Reflexive mode - "This mode demonstrates consciousness of the process of reading documentary and engages actively with issues of realism and representation. This mode also acknowledges the presences of the viewer and the modality judgements they arrive at. Corresponds to critical theory of the 1980's".
The Performative mode - "Acknowledges the emotional and subjective aspects of documentary and presents the idea's as part of a context, having different meanings of different people, often autobiographical in nature".

Week 2

Lecture Title: Photojournalism and Documentary

This week, we looked further into Photojournalism, where is started to where it is now and its journey on how it prgressed. We looked at Henri Cartier Bresson and Martin Parr and how their images created an opinion and the styles they took.

Photojournalism is sed to be the heritage and background of Documentary.
Ontology - The study of reality e.g Big Brother, Made In Chelsea
Observational mode is another phrase for a fly-on-the-wall documentary. E.g Crack House (see research page)
Participatory - Film maker is seen on documentary
Performative Mode - One person, one subject, follows one story.
Henri Cartier Bresson - Focused his work using the observational mode, his objects weren't focused looking at the camera, they were natural and spontaneous reporting natuaral reality, devised idea in the 1930's, people could only believe what they saw in these photo's, use of decisive moments.
Martin Parr - Use of reflexive mode, he sets up his photography and they are aware of the photographers presence, interacts with the subject. Began in the late 80's.
Lewis Hine - Earliest photo's and first camera's capturing american immigrants, voive of god - words that would be printed with the photo. America's so called 'land of dreams.'
Jacob Rees - Immigrants, technology wasn't as advanced therefore the subjects were defined by this, stopped natural photography.
Credene = Credibility
Cornell Capa - Magnum Agency
Rules of Engagment - Record before, middle and end. Almost like Todorov's theory of Equilibrium. 3 Forms of capturing reality.
The decisive moment - Capa on D-Day, event and photographer driven, the event controlls the documentary, one you control and one that is natural.
Active vs passive - subject matter changed reality
Dorethea Lange - 'Migrant Mother' shows depictions of working class, incredibly staged photo. Why did she do this? To make a point to upperclass society to manipulate power.
WSI - wider social implications - trying to make the audience respond
Propoganda - Visually manipulating society
The Poetic Mode - Walker Evans
Anthropology - The study of people
Micheal Crane - Segregation
Hung Cong Ut - vietnam 10 year war - to photos of crying/desperate children, become most effective visual anti war helping
Don McCullin - best british photojournalist
Eddie Adams - Bullet in the head
Embeds - Media sanctions, present was photographers are controlled by soldiers
Eve Arnold - First celebrity photojournalist - beginning of paparazi, obsession with celeb world
Corrie Day - 'Heroine one' - reflexive mode, manipulating theories together
Andrea Giacobbe - computor manipulated photojournalism
Jeff Wall - reflexive, performative and particapatory staging reality - how do we know they're actors
Documentary film makes a viewer feel a certain way, whereas documentary allows the viewer to create their own opinion

Week 3

Lecture Title: Introduction to 450d Canon Cameras

Within this lecture, we studied the 450d camera's and discovered the settings in great detail and practise. We mainly focused on exploring the AV mode and TV mode on creating the correct apperture, shutter speed and ISO.

Notes:

Image stabiliser kicks in at a 30th
ISO 100 - Spanish sunny day
ISO 400 - cloudy day
ISO 1600 - dawn to dusk - pixel quality is less
TTL - through the lens light metre
Contrast literally means black and light
White Balance - Telling the camera whats actually white
Portrait mode - tries to even and balance light
TV prioritise - shutter speed
AV - apperture priority, this describes the depth of field. 2.8 smallest depth of field to 91 biggest
A-dep - automatic depth of field
AF point, this tells the camera where to focus
Using built in flash quickens the shutter speed and there is a possibility of loosing control

Week 4

No lecture. Work on Yola sites.

Week 5

Lecture Title: Advanced photoshop using student images.

This week, we advanced our photoshop skills by editing raw images in CS5. From what I learnt from this lecture, I am ably to produce my photo essay and edit the photos professionaly.

Notes:

+ 50 saturation for most Magnum photographers
xmp - 4kb
+ 60 sharpening
Noise redution reduces the size of pixels
Smart sharpen, this sharpens the edges
jalbum for converting images
for jpeg saving, save on the highest setting for documentary filming
for world wide jpeg imaged save on 5

Week 6

Lecture Title: Advanced Final Cut Pro with Don Hendy

Within this lecture, we were given a few clips of video and sound for us to edit on Final Cut Pro. This lecture was for us to advance are skills on final cut too edit our documentaries to the best possible outcome.

Week 7

Lecture title: Technical Excellence 1

This lecture was to advance our knowledge even more on the technical and professional words to use when analysing documentary photojournalism. We also outlined the details for our group presentation and what was required from us.

Notes:

Take a look at Boing-Boing and WithoutABox
Interviewer = Expert , when we hear them before seeing them
Voice of God can define the theme, and the expert analyses it in more depth
Repeeating aesthetic - e.g bbc signiture style For example, David Attenborough Voice of God over extreme wide establishing shots
PoV shot = point of view, as if in someones eyes - mostly seen in docu-drama
Look at wonderland bbc 2
Second unit = person cappturing a decisive momentt other than what the main camera is filming
4th Wall - where the protaginist turns around andd starts talking to the camera

Week 8

Lecture Title: Technical Excellence 2

This week, we were to prepare our presentations for the final week. We grouped together and wrote down pointers we would need to remember and include within our 10 minute pitch.

Week 9

Lecture Title: Technical Excellence 3

Following from the two previous lectures, we had a look further into the key codes within documentary. We analysed films such as 'Biggie and Tupac' by NIck Broomfield. From this lecture I also expanded my media dictionary.

Week 10

Lecture Title: Technical Excellence 4

This lecture we put together our presentation ideas.

Week 11

This week as a group, we had a meeting with Karin, telling him about our presentation and how our idea is going so far. From this meeting we realised that we would have to research more into Pakistan and taxi drivers to ensure we keep our primary on good terms and create the perfect documentary.