Documentary Analysis (India Reborn)

• Released in 2009, India Reborn is a mixed documentary in which dizzying extremes and stunning contradictions of life in the world’s second most populous nation are explored by exposing us to a diverse array of individual Indian’s experiences. 
• An omniscient narrator is used while all the characters in the documentary talk to this narrator and subsequently to the audience without directly looking at the camera.
• Several interviews are added to the documentary so that the audience is able to connect with the issue being discussed.
• Actuality is displayed as the actual events happening in the individual's life are covered in the documentary such as the surgeries being conducted by the surgeon.
• Parallel editing is used throughout the documentary to draw a parallel between the highs of the shinning new India and the lows of the India that has been stagnant in its growth since independence.
• A traditional background score is used to accentuate the cultural feel of the documentary.
• Tracking, close-ups and zoom-ins are the primary shots used in the documentary to display the characters being covered aptly to the audience.
• fade ker ke multiple shots dali hoi hain.
• A logo of CBC, the production house, starts the documentary off and is inscribed in one corner of the frame throughout the documentary.
• The documentary starts and ends with the name of the documentary being displayed across the screen.

Documentary: Future of Food (analysis)

Its a mixed documentary and fully narrated by its host.

• at start of documentary, zoom ins of various food are shown along with narration by host, while host is not shown.
• name of documentary is shown as host walks by.
• host also talks to the audience directly by talking to the camera.
• A character who has to be introduced is shown by focusing him.
• Character doesn't talks to camera directly
• only host talks to character pretending there is no camera, using over the shoulder shots.
• whole they are talking surroundings related to documentary are also shown.
• map is shown to show where in world the host travels to, such as, India and Cuba.
• Wide shots and aerial shots are shown.
• background music is continuously played, it fades away when conversation or narration starts and fades in when only shots are shown.
• still footage is also shown
• blurred video and focusing different things in long take is used.
• statistics are also showed.

LOGO

We know that we are producing a documentary and it will be like, that we have a company who is making a documentary. Every company has a logo so we decided to come up with our original logo.Firstly, we searched on logos that how are they like and we made something like this:

 

However, researching though different production houses' logos, we improvised on our initial idea to develop a new logo as shown below:

                                                   

  Adding this logo to the starting and ending credits of the documentary will give it a more conventional and professional look.

Types of Documentaries

1) DOCUSOAPS

Its a observational documentary, it observes and follows any individual or group of people for certain time, for example, The Family and Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.

2) REALITY TV

This type of documentary gives useful information in form of entertainment.

Its a mixture of authentic material with serious information and commercial content.

3) Fly On The Wall

When camera is unseen or people ignore it, for example, Big brother, where hidden cameras are used.

4) MIXED

Its a documentary where combination of interviews, observation, actuality, footage and narration is included.

Narrator links the story together and advances the narrative. For example, The Future of Food.

5) SELF REFLEXIVE

Its a documentary where camera follows the Host but he pretends to ignore it.

6) DOCUDRAMA

Reconstruction of something which actually happened, with new actors posing to be real ones.

7) Fully Narrated

Narrator narrates whole way through documentary.

It is used to convey exposition and used to make sense of what audience watches. Narrator dominates what is happening, for example, Human Planet and The Future of Food. 

Research

Research is an essential part of the documentary making process so we researched into existing projects as well as the works of professionals to get a gist of the documentary ideas and the making process.

A) professional work:
Researching into the works of professional documentary makers, I came across some very beautiful documentaries featuring the cultural, social and historical aspects of societies.
1.India Reborn (CBC)
2.BBC Future Of Food- Part 1: India
3.The Great Indian Marriage Bazaar by Ruchika Muchhala
4.India A Dangerous Place to Be A Woman 

B)existing projects:
Research into projects by A levels students gave me an idea of the pros and cons of each project and helped me prepare for my own project.Some of the prominent documentaries I saw were as follows:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv8IrG8s8hg
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqzdnSSILUY
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgZ-MkICdC0

Check list (pre prodeuction)

1. Music: to be found on copy right sites

2. Making a story board, and considering WOW shots, such as, aerial shots or animations.

3. Production schedule, so we can use time properly.

4. Film Gear: making sure that i have necessary equipment, such as, Camera, tripod, microphone, etc.

5. Interviews/shot list: We need to consider the number of interviews we are going to include in extract of           documentary.

 Other than video we also need to focus on our ancillary tasks; a ad and double spreadsheet.

6. For ad we will make a rough sketch keeping our topic in mind

7. For double spreadsheet we will consider different type of contents to write, in planning, such as, interview or review or just a essay on it.

Questionare (research into audience)

Q.Do you watch documentaries?

1.Lots of them

2.Sometimes

3.Rarely

4.Never

Q.What type of Documentaries you like to watch?

1.Educational

2.Reality

3.Taboo

4.Cultural

5.Other

Q.What channel you prefer to watch them?

1.BBC

2.ITV

3.National Geographic

4.Channel 4

5.other

Q.What do you look in documentary?

1.topic which grabs your interest

2.anything new; being introduced

3.adventures host is going through

4.other, please specify:

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Documentary 13-10-13

Initially I decided to make a teaser trailer but then me and my partner Ramsha Usman came up with a inventive for documentary. The reborn of art of mehndi in Pakistan, how popular it is and why. We are really excited to start work on it. Now a days we are at stage of primary and secondary research. I hope we can implement our idea into camera work.

Reasearch into similar projects

5th September, 2013

We started working on our advanced portfolio 3 days before. On:

• 2nd September; our teacher introduced us to syllabus G324, we studied it once.
• 3rd September; our teacher gave us options to choose from which are highlighted in following page:
• 4th September; I researched into existing portfolio's of students, such as;

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ7EZtlY1HY

          and then considered my options, what i was capable of and interested in and I decided to make a                 teaser trailer.

• 5th September; today I discussed my decision with our teacher, she supported me and told me to do secondary search.

          As i did, I look into trailer's posted on you tube, such as;

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jIxygpLego
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9DCrPqSErk
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90PWFEeRApA

          and i also looked into some existing blogs, such as;

1. http://pghps.blogspot.com/2012/04/shooting-schedule.html

Introduction

I have created this blog in order to showcase my A-Level media studies project which is all about making a teaser trailer. On this blog you will be able to view the progress of me making a teaser.