Evaluation

Documentary Evaluation on Prezi

Documentary Completed

Please welcome the finished product... Illuminatum!

I'm the Editing Guy.

Seeing that I'm a perfectionist and the only person in our group who likes editing (I'm rather competent at it) I was unofficially made in charge of editing as the other guys, without thinking just left it to me to do. I worked on it with Mathew by my side who was my second in command in terms of quality and he was my second opinion whilst the other two guys were elsewhere engaged. I've had to use Garage Band on the macs which is absolutely fine for piecing together a video of your holiday or a family member's birthday party but it isn't all that great when it comes to doing technologically advanced stuff when making a serious documentary.

I've put in a lot of effort into the editing of the documentary and I'm still not entirely happy with the outcome and there are a few things which I need to address before I can declare it done.

A major problem I've come across is the sound quality on the interview with Barrie Rouse, it's not very loud at all and this could cause potential problems for the audience hearing him, when you have earphones in (on the macs), the sound isn't too bad but generally it's very quiet. This is down to the lack of equipment we have as an external microphone (for the camera or a handheld wireless mic) or a boom mic would have been great.

Enough of my ranting, it's almost done so watch this space. :)

Newspaper Advert

This is the finished product as far as the Newspaper Advert is concerned.

After the other guys made the logo and a rough template, I then "tidied" the advert up by ensuring that all the writing was clear, aligned to the centre and as crisp as it could be, I also created a QR barcode which I implemented to direct people to our potential website which people can access through their Smartphones on the move.

Editing

The editing of the documentary has been rather difficult, we had to cut different parts up of the interview to shorten it and to cut out the gaps and also to relieve the interview of things that weren't relevant to the documentary.

A great proportion of what we had in mind in terms of initial structure changed because of the lack of time we had to record new bits and then put them in.

The Script

Seeing that we are making a documentary, we can't really have a script for the whole thing as the recording of footage is genuine and on impulse.

The only parts that could have a script are the voiceover parts and the recording(s) of the narrator talking directly to the camera and hence the audience.

Our scripts were written just before the recording of them, and I wrote a big proportion of it as I was the person that would be saying it. We had to record just before recording because there was no way of knowing what we would be talking about before that time.

Newspaper Advert Designs

These are some of the designs we have for the advert, we are going to try and replicate this sort of idea on to a computer and see how it works out.

Completed Radio Advert

Yay! The Radio Advert is complete! We've stuck to the original idea of overlapping background music with the voiceover. I had to edit this in Music Editing software 'GarageBand' before exporting as an mp3 file and then linking this to the picture that I made with this Illuminati symbol on 'iMovie'. Doing it this way just makes it easier to upload onto youtube and any other website.

Here is the finished product.

Newspaper Advert Research

The first Newspaper advert was used in the late 1830's with the first ever appearing in a French Newspaper called "La Presse". Newspapers introduced paid adverts so that they could lower prices of newspapers as a whole. And a lower prices meant that it would sell more of it's newspapers, increasing it's readership and ultimately increase profits.

This is an example of a very early newspaper advert. As you can see they have used a drawing and the advert has the name of the company it's logo (possibly the drawing) what they sell and where they are based. This advert doesn't, however, try to convince people to buy their product(s) by using clever motto's or slogans.
Over time, newspaper adverts have evolved into more picture based adverts than it's logo/name orientated forefather's.

The Music For Radio Ad

Me and Mathew decided that the music we will use should be choral as it's usually associated with religion and has a mysterious vibe about it, and seeing that The Illuminati and Freemasonry are sometimes (wrongly or rightly)  thought of as religions and are rather mysterious, we think the type of music fits.

We did however come across a problem. The music tended to get very loud at times which meant that you couldn't hear my voice-over very clearly, I then adjusted the volume and cut bit's of the soundtrack out to create an advert that flowed and that would create that mysterious yet informative ambience that we require.

This is the music for the radio ad.

Radio Advert Recording

I wrote a script for the Radio advert which we then recorded using a microphone linked directly with Garage Band on the iMac. One major problem we stumbled upon is the fact that the microphone only records Mono which means that the recording will come out from only one speaker (in our case it turns out that only the left speaker has any sound).
When Playing this through the earphones the left ear is clear and you can hear all of the voice-over whereas the right ear has little sound and adds an unwanted echoing to the recording.
We recorded with me, and trialled three other people before coming to the conclusion that my voice was the clearest and that it made sense if the narrator of the documentary itself is the same person as the advert voice-over however this doesn't have to be the case.

We also had people walking into the room and talking which prolonged the number of takes and time it took to record the Radio Advert, as we were recording in a school, it isn't ideal but it's something we must endure and overlook.

Radio Ad & Documentary Music

This Morning, Me and Mathew have been working on creating our own music for the radio advert and for the documentary using Garage Band. Currently we are cutting and adding different sounds to create our desired classical and mysterious sound. This music will go in the background for different voiceovers both in advert and in the documentary itself.

Visit to Freemason Lodge

Whilst researching into the Illuminati, me and Mathew came across the fact that Freemasonry had ties and links with the original Illuminati and that many members of the Illuminati were Masons. This led us to push the idea of going to the Freemason's Lodge on the Tettenhall Road in Wolverhampton to see if someone there would be willing to give us an interview.

We knew that there may be a strong possibility that they may not be willing to talk to camera and may tell us to leave, so we took a handheld flip camera as well as our normal DSLR just so that if they do refuse to give us an interview that we would have this recorded in true documentary style.

We went to the Lodge on 28th February 2012 and we met a Mr J Barry Rouse who is the Provincial Grand Secretary for the Stafford Region. We had thought up some questions that we would ask the interviewee but Mr Rouse asnwered all our questions in practically 2 questions as he was very thorough with his answers. 

Meeting such a high member of the lodge enabled us to get an in-depth insight into not only the Freemasons as a whole but also in regards to religions, speculations surrounding the Freemasons and about the different ceremonies that take place in the lodges.

We were then given a tour of the Lodge but were asked not to record upstairs where the ceremonies take place because if we were to ever become masons ourselves it would "ruin the experience" although I still don't see how that would be the case.

RADIO ADVERT

Today we have started our planning and writing our radio advert. Radio adverts for documentaries usually have a voiceover as in the documentary itself, this is usually done by the narrator himself and the advert will include some little voice clips from like an interview within the documentary.

The advert also acts as an enticing tool to create awareness and capture the audience's attention as well as informing people of when it is due to come on TV or online.

We have had a heated debate over what the date should be for the end of the advert and we have come to a conclusion that we should do 2 or 3 separate documentary adverts: one with "Thursday (date)", one with "Coming Soon".

Many serious adverts are usually just music and a voiceover whereas the more contemporary pressing matters over politics. religion, race and sex usually have snippets of people being interviewed within the documentary almost in a VoxPop style.

Oh Mann!

We decided and asked Miss Mann, a teacher from the North East Wolverhampton Academy to give us an interview on the Illuminati and Freemasonry as a professional especially because we know that she's been to italy and been to the freemasons lodge there, but unluckily for us she dropped out on the last minute by emailing Mathew. The email reads:

hi mat,

i am so so so sorry but I'm going to have to drop out from the documentary. I feel really bad for letting you down at such short notice but i hope you will understand that i wouldn't do so without good reason. Please don't kill me!

thanks for your understanding,

Miss Mann

This means we will have to find another person who is willing to be recorded as a professional.

Filming and Problems

We started filming on 27th January 2012 at the Northwood site of our school. The first day of filming consisted of trying out different shots and trying to see what works best with the opening shot of our documentary, we had a rough idea as i had previously drawn out a potential storyboard for the opening.

The problems we have come across so far are due to the location of filming. Seeing that we are filming on location at school, there are certain obstacles such as noisy children walking late to lessons and trying to get on camera, school bells, noise of the refrigeration units near the drama room and unexpected outside noises etc. All these obstacles with our limited access to media hardware (especially for sound capture) makes it even harder for us to create this documentary quickly and effectively.

It was also hard for me to think of what to say, as I was not given a written script so I had to improvise what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. This, and the rest of the team working out different camera angles and working on the aperture, prolonged the shooting time of the opening scene.

A2 Media: Jump Cut Techniques

Me and my group have decided to use the jump cut method in our documentary. I think this will add a professional finish to the documentary we are creating. This and the subject of our documentary (Illuminati and freemasonry) will give it more surreal atmosphere.

This video is the first film to use jump cut, this shows the idea we have and how we want to use this technique.

Email to Mark Jones

This is the email I sent to Dr Jones and his reply follows underneath.

He was a potential interviewee.

-----Original Message-----
From: rafiqf05@newacademy.org.uk
To: markjones@wlv.ac.uk
Cc:
Sent: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:06:05
Subject: Inquiry For Documentary

Good Afternoon Dr Jones,

I am an A2 Media Studies student at The NEW Academy and my team and I are currently producing a documentary on the Illuminati. The purpose of this email is to enquire whether yourself or another lecturer would be happy to be interviewed with your views on the subject for our documentary.

Alternatively, if you have a contact of someone who is interested in the Illuminati conspiracy or could voice their opinion, it would really be of help.

My teacher, Zoe Lynch, is a former student of Media and Cultural Studies and she recommended that I contact you as you may have information or may be interested.

I hope you can help us in this matter.


Kind Regards,


Faraz Rafiq 

Email Received  

-----Original Message-----
From: "Jones, Mark" <markjones@wlv.ac.uk>
To: "rafiqf05@newacademy.org.uk" <rafiqf05@newacademy.org.uk>
Cc:
Sent: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:49:30
Subject: RE: Inquiry For Documentary

Hi Faraz,

apologies for delay - I'm in the middle of marking and the start of the new semester.

I'm afraid I can't be any help. I only really have a superficial knowledge of the topic, and don't think I'd be any use in your documentary. I used to know one academic expert on the Illuminati, but I've discovered that he's now moved to the US. I've asked a colleague in History who has researched underground organisations, but he too has very little knowledge of either the original Illuminati, or the various groups since associated with it.

Good luck with your work, and sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Mark 

S.Jacobs

I have tried contacting Mr Steve Jacobs who is the head of media and cultural studies at the University of Wolverhampton by calling the university and emailing him but have had no response I have now been trying for 3 days and there is no answer on the phone and no reply by email.

I have also tried contacting Mark Jones who is a lecturer of English at the university and I am awaiting his response.

The use of aperture

As we have decided to use the SLR cameras we can make use of it's features such as adaptable aperture as manual zoom & focus.

Here is a test of aperture we did, defining the background and then the face.

Using these more professional cameras it meant we could change the way light is used i.e. making things brighter or darker before editing.

Camera Use

I pushed the idea of using SLR cameras to record. So after some consolidation, my Team and I decided that instead of the Sony HandyCam's we will use a Nikon D3100 for the filming of our main task this is because the Handycam cameras are unclear, unprofessional, have a poor resolution and do not have the advanced features of the Nikon such as adjusting the aperture  and changing the zoom and focus manually. It helps with the real-life feel of the documentary and allows greater control of the shot appearance.

I am an ex-Photography student and with current Photography students Mathew Blackham and Nazir Ullah we decided that the Nikon was the best camera for the job. At First we used the Nikon for taking pictures of possible locations and then decided we should try using it for filming, after seeing the wonderful result we decided it would be wise for us to stick to it for filming because of the numerous advantages!

Using the Nikon also means that it's easier to shoot at the Northwood site (our main on sight shooting location) as the Nikon Camera's are based at The Northwood Campus and there is equipment that we could potentially hire out from the photography department such as reflectors and spot-lights.

Possible locations for recording

These are recordings of possible recording locations using the Nikon D3100,

in each video we explain why we may use the locations and why.

Interviews

We have a number of potential interviewees in mind for our documentary. We could potentially have an academic such as a lecturer from a university, and have interviews with both performers (relevant to music industry) and members of the general public.

I will now try to get in-touch with lecturers at the University of Wolverhampton to see if anyone would be willing to give us an interview or point us in the right direction with their vast contact directory.

I will also ask my drama teacher Miss James to give us an interview as she has previously performed with a few high profile celebrities and has been a performer.

Audiences

Documentaries stereotypically appeal to the older generation so with our documentary my aim is to create this documentary for a wider audience range, from teenagers to people in their late years.