A2 courework research - documentary "Six"

To get an idea about the standard of A2 work, I looked at Documentaries made by year 13 students on YouTube and Vimeo. This documentary is from Vimeo and YouTube and is called Six;

This was created 3 years ago and is about day to day life in a school run by sixth formers. The music used is uplifting which creates a positive vibe. The documentary has used a range of close ups and establish shots in the introduction sequence to establish the location setting for the audience and to give them an idea of what the documentary is about. The voice over is relevant to these locations within the shots and tell the audience more of what the documentary is about. 

The shots use high key lighting to create a bright and positive atmosphere. The title works with the documentary topic, but doesn't match the other titles within the documentary as they use different fonts and so then lack continuity. The diegetic and non-diegetic sound effects, such as the school bell, work with the documentary topic as it is iconic and associated with school life.

What I like about this documentary is how the student has used the pace of the non diegetic soundtrack to set up the pace of the documentary. The general atmosphere and feeling of the documentary is positive and uplifting, in which the mood is created by the soundtracks as well as the teachers being interviewed in the documentary. The students have also considered to use a range of shots relating to the topic being discussed by the voice over, and also a variety of angles and shots during the interviews rather than a typical medium close up, which gives the audience the wider picture about whats being discussed rather than the same shot of the teachers being interviewed.

The camera angles, shots, editing and lighting used all work for the documentary topic set. My criticisms would be that the documentary narrative does at times go off topic and it is unnecessary for a short documentary to have an introduction that lasted a minute long, which wastes time and means there's less time and quality spent on the actual documentary itself, and more time spent focusing on the introduction. Another criticism would be that the documentary producers used copyrighted music, which had it been a real documentary could have been sued for using music without the artists permission. Other critics would be that the music fade is too quick and not subtle enough and also the actual documentary itself is part "one" of a long documentary rather than a short documentary, which is not quite the requirement set for the coursework.

Overall, the use of editing and camera is good and it somewhat sticks to the conventional structure of a short documentary, and so the mark it was given (A grade) I believe to be the adequate grade for this coursework. What I can take from this is;

- The editing should go at a pace created by the incidental music/soundtrack

- High key lighting locations are better for a happier and more positive atmosphere

- An introduction for short documentary should be kept brief otherwise the rest of the documentary becomes rushed and lower quality

- Try and keep the narrative on topic

- Use royalty free music or create own in the risk of being sued by the artist/video being taken off YouTube

- Consider a variety of camera angles and shots when doing interviews as well as considering dialogue voicing over other shots relating to the topic being discussed during editing.