Documentary Assignment: Production

Reflection

Vox-Pops and B-roll

We shot our vox pops in the sunny, but windy downtown Wilmington on Saturday around 1pm. It was quite the adventure. We hopped right into shooting b-roll where we shot our first "documentary" assignment: the fountain in the intersection of 5th and Market. While we taught our DP how to utilize the tripod in order to gain the perfect pan, we also hoped to grab a few vox pops walking by. However, no one crossed our path in this location.
So we ventured further into downtown and decided to park at the very top of the parking garage. There, we got some great footage of downtown from above which, I must say, is beautiful! Then we got our exercise as descended the stairs into the streets. We walked a few blocks towards the boardwalk and decided it would be best to set up the sound and the camera in one place, then draw people in to be interviewed.
This decision proved to be successful.
I would lure people in, explaining to them what we were doing, then I would show them where to stand. Troy made sure they were in focus, Anthony handled sound, and Jacob, our producer, assisted both of them with the equipment. Then, when everything was ready, I interviewed them. It was a lot of fun; we got to meet new people and we got some very good answers that we can definitely use for the documentary.
Some challenges we faced:
It was kind of chilly because of the harsh winds, so a lot of people walking by were trying to get indoors and weren't very enthusiastic about standing outside any longer than they had to.
There were a lot of clouds, so we ran the risk of having shadows. We also had the sun in a lot of peoples' faces.
The camera, at some points, was out of focus because everyone moved to stand at a different distance or height from the camera.
We were surrounded by trucks, cars, trolleys, bikes, people talking, dogs barking, and children yelling. This was a challenge for sound, but, fortunately, we had a great mic and awesome sound guy, so it turned out in the end to not have been that big of a problem.
We ended up with five vox pops by the end of the day, and, being chilly ourselves, decided to wrap things up. We plan on getting a few more vox pops (better to have too much as opposed to not enough) and definitely some more b-roll. Shooting b-roll now will be much easier since we've already gotten our expert interview.

Expert Interview

We can use the interview to build a visual story and plan what sort of shots we need for b-roll. I'm definitely glad we got in the interview this early in the game.
We interviewed a man named Buckley that has been working in the Wilmington film industry for 18 years now. He let us borrow his camera to shoot the interview from two angles.
We shot the interview at Buckley's quaint little home, where I bonded with his adorable dog, Basil. It was nice to meet someone who has been in this area for so long and has plenty of knowledge about how the industry works. He had a lot to say, and we were all ears.
Since our DP couldn't make it to the shoot, Jacob and I acted as sub-DP's. I framed the primary shot, Jacob set it up, I threw out a couple options for the secondhand angle, and Jacob filmed that on handheld throughout the interview. We did the shoot in Buckley's living room, which had good natural lighting. So we only needed one of our two boxlights.
Some challenges we faced:
Buckley and his family live in an older home, meaning there were a lot of strange noises. The sink would make random sounds, the house would hum, and then there were wind chimes outside that are definitely audible. Anthony struggled with all of the ambiance, but he got the best sound that he could. And Buckley certainly helped by pausing and restarting his sentences when his sink would gurgle.

Overall

Overall, this has been a successful group project, but we still have a lot of work to do. I am very grateful for my team and can't wait to see the finished product that we're going to create together.