First Draft

This is the first draft of my documentary;

 

Editing - background music pratice

One of the music clips I found on a royalty free music site was a piano piece called "memories". I decided to experiment with this clip and reverse the audio using after effects to see what kind of mood and effect it created.

I then transformed this into an mp3 using premiere pro and edited it together using windows movie maker to see if it worked as an introduction to the documentary, in which i also used the original music clip and one of the interview clips with this;

Although you can't hear the interviewee very well in this clip, the music used in the introduction fits well in terms of timing and is good for setting up a good atmosphere.

Planning - background music

To create a good atmosphere, I will be using background music to create a positive and uplifting feeling. I have put together a list of 8 songs in which may potentially be used in my documentary, in which come from either bensound.com or incompetech.com both in which are royalty free music sites that allows you to use the music provided freely without being sued by the artist;

 

Titles - final font and colour scheme

This is what my main titles will look like using the font and colour scheme;

Planning - Titles typography

Due to target audience research, I have had to rethink the texts to use for my titles. The actual font itself needs to be bold and related to the theme of video games, in which limits my options down to 2 different fonts. I have re evaluated different fonts using Fontspace and discovered other various fonts to use for my titles;

 font 1 (from Super Mario bros)

 font 2 (from Minecraft)

 font 3 (from Soul Calibur)

 font 4 (from sonic adventures)

 font 5 (from Legend of Zelda)

font 6 (from Assissins Creed)

 
font 7 (from Pokemon)




Out of these fonts, the best that meets the criteria and stands out personally are fonts 3 and 5. To test whether they work with the colour schemes, I then put them into a white font against a pastel blue/pastel purple background;

After trying out these fonts matching them to the correct criteria, I believe font 3 using the purple and white colour scheme will be the best choice for the final titles.

Planning - Titles target audience research

To help decide which font to use, I have used a questionnaire to get through to my target audience. Because my target audience are aged between 13-24, they are more likely to be in touch with modern technology and so using an online questionnaire would be more convenient to them. Here are the results I collected from the questionnaire;

 And so according to the responses from my target audience, my main titles needs to;

- Be Bold
- Reflect on the genre of the documentary
- Be based off the theme of video games 
- Use pictures or animations
- Use a colour scheme of either white/blue or white/purple
- Match to credits and other titles used in terms of colour scheme and font style

Planning - Title fonts

I have investigated various types of fonts from vast media platforms (e.g. games, films, etc) to get an idea about what kind of font to use for my titles. I have used the website http://www.fontspace.com/ to look into various fonts that relate to these titles and out of the options these are the ones that stood out;

  Font 1 

 Font 2


  

 Font 3

 Font 4

 Font 5

 Font 6

 Font 7



Font 8

Font 9

 

Font 10



To get a better idea about which font to use, I will ask my target audience which ones they prefer, in which once all my date has been gathered I can count in the results and use them to my advantage. 

Planning - Titles moodboard

Filming - additional shots

These are some additional shots I gathered when filming at the interview. These shots should give the audience more of an insight into the lifestyle of a cosplayer and their interests;

 

Filming - Tester shots

These are the shots I have gathered from filming the interviews. Due to technical faults on the laptop there is no sound on these clips, but I have edited them together to show a small sample based on the quality of lighting, camera shots and mes en scene;

 

Filming review - 8/12/15 The Interview

I filmed some interview shots on the 8th of December. I arrived at the interviewees house at around 6:30pm and we filmed for two and a half hours until 9:00pm. The overall outcome resulted in quality footage with good audio and lighting effects but there have been a few technical issues to deal with on location;

One technical issue was that the battery was low when shooting on location, having not being able to charge it up before hand. luckily, I had brought the charger and was able to charge it whilst setting up for the shoot however the battery took longer than expected to charge up and so time was wasted on shoot waiting for the battery to charge up.

Another technical issue faced when filming was setting up the lights. The poles we'd been given wouldn't screw onto the lights and so meant that they didn't have any support and weren't able to be kept up. In the end, we decided to put the lighting on the bunk bed which was in a high location however we had to be aware of the risk of the lights overheating and burning the mattress on the bed. 

Something I discovered after filming was the positioning and the talking space. The interview subjects have been placed a little too far in to the centre of the frame as I would have preferred it to be, which I didn't notice or correct when filming;

Apart from the issues faced, it was a general success and I got the right shots needed for my documentary.

Planning - Preparation for the interview

Because I am filming after school, I have arranged transport to collect the equipment I need to use to film for my documentary. I also have arranged for help to carry the equipment needed into the car and out the car as well. 

In terms of equipment, I have a backup SD card in case there wasn't enough room on the first one, as well as spare batteries for the boom mic and the battery charger for the camera in case it dies. When it comes to setting up, I will need to;

- Set up the tripod and camera
- Put the SD card in the camera
- Set up the boom mic and pole
- Put the battery in the boom mic
- Set up the props and costumes in the talking space
- Set up the lighting and make sure its secure on a tripod and in a safe location 
- Turn on the lights and adjust them to a reasonable setting 
- Plug the boom mic in to the camera
- Test the audio and lighting on the camera
- Adjust the camera with the interviewees in frame to make sure they are in focus and at a good range in terms of shots.

I also need to be sure the interviewees have the questions before hand (at least 12 hours) so they can prepare themselves time to give a well thought out response.

Planning - Lighting management interview

When I am filming at my location, it'll be very dark due to the shorter daylight hours. To obtain good quality lighting, I will be using special studio lighting to light up my location. Because the room I am filming in is a small room, I will only require one of these lights as they are very bright. I will be using high key lighting to obtain good quality footage and will adjust the light setting according to the distance from the interviewee and the light. 

 

Planning - Location interview

The other location I am filming my documentary will be at one of the cosplayers home. The idea of filming in their house is to give the audience an insight into the life of a cosplayer. Not only that, but its also local so this will be convenient for transporting equipment.

I will film in the room of the cosplayer and also set up an area in which props can be used in the talking space to further represent the interviewees interests; 

Other locations I have considered includes my own house, the school photography room and other cosplayers homes. These locations are all indoors so there would be no sound interruption from wind, however we decided it would be more convenient for everyone to go to this location as it was the home of two of the cosplayers I was interviewing, and was also in the same town where the other cosplayer lives, and so geographically it was more convenient for all of them.

Planning - Managing audio

To get quality audio footage for my documentary I am using a rode video mic on the end of a boom pole. In order to obtain the highest quality audio I must make sure;

- The high pass filter switch (HPF) is on;

By doing this, it will remove low unwanted frequencies that are in the background of the audio recording.

 - The microphone level has been adjusted so that the microphone can pick up the sound from a close range and that the audio isn't too loud.
- The batteries for the boom microphone are in and placed the right way.

On the camera, there is a bar in the corner in which will indicate what sound the audio is picking up;

I will use this bar to see whether the sound is being picked up by the rode mic and if so whether it is too loud.

The mic is a hand held device in which requires a second person to hold the mic whilst I will be doing the filming. In order to achieve my goal, I will be getting help from the cast when they not being interviewed so I can get the sound quality I need.

 

Planning - equipment

The equipment I will need to film the interview is;

- Panosonic HDC TM700
- Tripod

In addition to this, my interview also requires quality audio and lighting in order to achieve a good product. To control the audio I will be using;

Rode NTG 2

This will be placed at the end of a boom pole so the audio quality will pick up more sound from the person being interviewed. Also, by putting it on a pole means it can be controlled in terms of where about the mic is in the shot and so the person holding the mic can position it out of shot.

I will also be using special lighting on tripods in which will help adjust the lighting quality in which i can adjust the lighting to create the right tone and mood;

Planning - costume

For the interview, the cosplayers will be wearing normal everyday clothing to show that they fit into society and are regular people so it relates with the target audience. However, they will also be wearing clothing in which reflects on a franchise from anime/scifi such as tshirts and hoodies

for example;

This clothing is something that an everyday person would wear but is also branded with the franchise that inspired the cosplayers.

Planning - filming interviews

My second location is being filmed in the home of one of the cosplayers who attended comic con. This will be filmed on the 8th of December after school as it was the only date I could collectively get all the people who agreed to be interviewed together. Because of the time of year, it will be dark by the time I get round to filming the interviews, meaning I will have to depend on man made lighting completely.

Footage from comic con

Here are some shots I collected from comic con;

 

Editing - Time lapse

This is a video of some footage I collected from shooting at the NEC. The shot was filmed from a long shot and I deliberately did it from this range to do a time lapse to include in my documentary. I then edited the long shot footage I collected and speed up the footage at a different speed;

The first clip was speed up by x500 speed in which the clip was filmed for roughly about a minute which was then reduced to about 13 seconds. The second clip was speed up by x300 in which was filmed for about 30 seconds and reduced to 5 seconds.

Filming - still shots

These are some still shots I took on location when filming for my documentary;

Filming review - 21/11/15

My overall view on filming at comic con was a success. There was a panic the night before where the spare battery wouldn't work for the camera even though it had full charge, however I discovered when filming on location that a spare battery wasn't necessary for the task and I had battery power left over from the shoot. 

On location I got a total of 51 different shots and clips which is more than I was initially expecting. However, I didn't get any on location interviews with any cosplayers and so I didn't get a chance to use the interview questions I had planned out and will have to depend on the interview I will be shooting at one of the cosplayers house. 

I got a variety of different shots from comic con including long shots to use for time lapse, group shots of the cosplayers and close ups of different merchandise. I also managed to get shots of the cosplayers waiting for the train at the station, the train arriving, the cosplayers traveling and then arriving to comic con, in which lets the audience in on the journey sequence for a cosplayer traveling to a convention.

Here are some screen shots taken from the footage I collected;

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XLS

MCU

MLS

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Filming preparation - 21/11/15

Tomorrow, on November the 21st, I will be filming my first shots for my documentary. Filming in a busy location with a big group of people can be unpredictable and I need to be ready to prepare for what could go wrong. Things that could go wrong on shot include;

- not enough battery power
- no enough storage on SD card
- camera technical faults
- losing the camera and footage
- losing the cast members 
- not enough footage will be filmed 

To prevent this from happening, I have brought backup SD cards with 32 GB memory as well as backup battery as well as a map and a secure case to carry the camera in.    

Planning - Costumes

As a part of the interview, I asked the cosplayers to be interviewed in their outfits they are wearing to comic con;

Jess Sharman's outfit is taken from the anime/manga series "Death Note" which is a Japanese animation. The character she has taken on is Misa Misa who is one of the leading protagonists in the anime.

Jess Fisher's cosplay is a character from the popular tv cartoon Adventure time. She has dressed up as the character Bemo, a video games console, with a post apocalyptic twist, as though her character was in  an apocalypse. 

 

 

Danny Mead's cosplay is a character from the indie video game Undertale. Undertale is a game about a human that falls into a world full of monesters, in which Danny has dressed up as the character Sans, who is a skeleton that helps the human in the game.

Planning - Risk assessment

Risks of filming at the NEC

I have carefully considered the risks of filming at comic con, in which I have given it a rating out of 5 in how risky it is and how it can be resolved;

1) Risk of stolen equipment, 4/5 (high risk). If this was to happen, it would result in a loss in footage and also loss in income for the equipment (around £700). This problem can be resolved by being cautious and aware of equipment, in which when it is not in use should be packed away and secured in a bag or rucksack, in which should be out of reach of potential pick pockets. 

2) Risk of leaving equipment on transport or losing equipment, 3/5 (moderate risk). If this was to happen,it would result in a loss in all my footage meaning it would significantly lower my A level grade. This problem can be resolved by being as cautious as I can be with the equipment and give it to someone else to look after if I am in need to do other tasks.
 
3) Risk of the event of a fire, 1/5 (minimal risk). Being in an enclosed area with lots of people can mean in the event of a fire, it may take longer to escape. To prevent this, I will make sure that I am aware of the fire exits at all times and have a planned escape route if necessary.

4) Risk of getting lost 3/5 (moderate risk). Getting lost in a big venue like the NEC would mean my filming schedule would be off track and is dangerous and applies to everyone in in the group I am attending comic con with especially for vulnerable youths under the aged of 18. To prevent this from happening, the NEC has maps and directions as well as information desks located near the halls. I can also arrange a meeting point with the group should any one of us get lost at any point.

5) Risk of traveling on trains, 2/5 (very low risk). Travelling on trains can be quite unsafe if safety isn't taken seriously. The trains travel at high speeds, so its important to remember to keep a distance from the platform and the railway tracks as there is a potential risk of falling onto the tracks. It is also important when traveling on trains to be prepared for an emergency incident, such as fire breakout or emergency stopping on the train. To prevent injury in this incident, I will make myself aware of emergency exits as well as tools to alert the driver in such case of an emergency incident e.g. emergency brake.

6) Risk of medical incident at comic con, 2/5 (very low risk). In a big crowded event, it can be quite overwhelming in which could lead to panic attacks, fainting or worse in severe cases. To prevent this from happening, I will keep hydrated and eat when necessary, as well as bring excess water and a first aid kit in the event of an incident. I will also keep my mobile phone at close hand should an emergency arise and an the emergency services are needed to be contacted.

Planning - Shot list

Before going out to film at comic con, I need to plan what kind of shots I'd ideally like to get. Having researched into other documentaries about cosplay, The kind of location shots I'll need are;

- Long shot/ Extreme long shots; This shot will show groups of cosplayers from a long distance, in which in order to achieve this shot I may need to find a high location or stand at one end of the hall. I will only need two types of these shots just to give the audience an idea about the vast size of the NEC.

- Close ups; Detailed close ups of props, costumes, merchandise and stalls will be required. I'd like to get around five or six shots of these in which will give the audience more detail about comic con.

- Medium close-ups; Like with close ups, these will be detailed shots of props, costumes, merchandise and stalls just from a more distant range. I'd like to get around five of six shots from a medium close up.

- Mid shots; This shot range still gives the audience detail but also shows them more of whats in the image, in which I would like to film the stalls that sell merchandise and props from this range. I'd like the get around seven to eight different shots from a mid shot as it is a practical shot and used frequently in the other documentaries.

- Medium long shots; This shot is slightly more distant than a mid shot and shows more of what is there. I plan to use these shots when filming cosplayers and the people at comic con, in which the shot may be tracking the subject or the subject is posing to the camera. I plan to get around eight to ten different shots from a medium long shot as it is a good range to work from and was also used frequently in the other documentaries.

If I stick to this plan, I should collect enough footage for the narrative of my documentary in which shouldn't require any last minute re-shoots.

Planning - Location consent

Comic con is an annual event held twice a year at Birmingham, in both March and November. The policy for filming at comic con is outlined clearly on the website, in which shows that it is okay to film and take photos at comic con but for personal use only (with the person's permission) and not for financial gain. It also clearly states that no filming or photos are to be taking during interview panels of celebrities at the event, in which slightly affects the freedom in what photos and videos I can take at comic con;

Planning - Lighting management at comic con

For the NEC, I wont be taking any lighting rigs as it is unnecessary weight to carry and a hassle to set up in a busy location. As a result of this, I will instead be using the natural lighting at the event, in which this shot shows how it affects the camera visability;

As shown from the pictures above, the natural lighting at the NEC even though it gives off a bright yellow/orange filtered colour, it doesn't affect the camera viability in any way in which the lighting isn't a problem and won't affect my filming in any way.