This semester, the class was assigned by Ibu Lis to make a documentary based off of Life In a Day which is a documentary directed by Ridley Scott and Kevin MacDonald. The class-made documentary will feature a collection of segments filmed by each student in the class, arranged in chronological order, to tell the story of how the Year 10 Media Studies class spends one day. She told the class we had to go the whole nine yards, meaning we had to create storyboards, shooting plans, etc. before we were able to shoot our segment.
Life in a Day [IMDB] [WIKIPEDIA]
Life in a Day is a user generated (or crowdsourced) documentary created by, as stated before, Ridley Scott and Kevin MacDonald, with an emphasis on the latter as he directed the whole documentary. This one and a half hour long documentary showcases the lives of over 80,000 (According to the submission count) people during the 24th of July and it's all shot in one day (Technically not due to timezones and whatnot). The big concept here is how people all over the globe live differently and how we can see that from seeing what they do in one day, not even a year. It highlights the differences in culture and traditions between countries and continents.
It was edited by the director, who put the clips in a linear fashion (No time cuts, chronological) and also edited certain clips together to make them feel more natural. For example, when there's a clip showing someone catching a fly which then cuts to another clip of someone releasing a fly.
The documentary presumably starts around midnight and ends in midnight and you can feel the time progression, although subtlety, whilst viewing.The director also used several non diegetic sounds for background songs, some composed some taken straight out of certain clips, and he did a really great job of it as it helps separate segments and when going from a clip with non diegetic sounds to one without, it feels very natural as if the director actually segmented the documentary and the clips properly. See what I mean by watching a trailer for the documentary below. (Full version can be found on YouTube)
It is quite obvious MacDonald put a lot of time and effort in to it. In an interview he stated that, "I always want to give an audience something new, something they haven’t seen before. And of course experience something new myself. It keeps you stimulated as a filmmaker to know you are trying something that might fail, that is an experiment. And Life in Day was a risky experiment." This means that MacDonald saw this as a challenge and used his experience working on past feature films like the Last King of Scotland, to bring something new to the table.
They made it like this because it is displaying/representing the different lives around the globe and giving this sort of "We are all connected" message. Making it feel as natural and as connected as possible is one of the ways MacDonald used to make the documentary as fluid as it is.
As an added note, we were only able to view the full documentary on YouTube because the producers teamed up with YouTube, allowing the crew to use YouTube as the platform in which the participants of the project were able to submit their footage.
The Dirty Work
Before watching LiaD, Ibu Lis told us to keep an eye out for any interesting segments and to pay attention to the. Why? Because afterwards, she told us we were going to
A. Produce an oral analysis on a certain segment of LiaD
B. Work as a class to make a LiaD-esque documentary
Oral Analysis
For my analysis, I chose to do the noon segment which is accompanied by the sound of african women singing whilst working. It starts at 41:07 and ends in 45:16. Thankfully, Ibu Lis gave us a table to fill in with all the questions we have to answer for this analysis. Afterwards we had to record ourselves reading the analysis out loud and we were given the chance to use Power Point to help get our point across easier.
To sum it up, here is a brief run down of my analysis.
I chose this segment because of the way the music stood out and how the director used a bunch of editing tricks to organise the segment in a way that helps send his message. The footage was taken at around noon as evidenced by the daylight and showcases people working and eating, so around lunchtime. There's a subtle theme regarding how food gets on people's tables, example in one of the beginning segments people were farming then it cuts to sushi in a conveyor belt then it cuts to people diving underwater and fisherman. The segment tells the story of how people spend their afternoons. The cinematography is quite varied as it is user generated, however MacDonald edited the clips together to form a linear documentary without any special effects. In this segment, he also used non-diegetic and diegetic sounds as the sound the african ladies made was carried over to the other shots in the segment.
Class Documentary
So, first thing she ran us through was how exactly we were going to make this and the process in which we had to abide by in order to make this documentary. To summarise, we had to go make a storyboard (We also watched a video on this from Indy Mogul), a shooting plan, and a timeline (Which we made first).
Then, Ibu Lis went to a random number generator website and assigned us on a specific time frame accordingly. The class documentary would show the life of the class from 6 AM to 11 PM. My time frame was around 10 O'clock. Before I could properly plan it, I had to make a timeline.
This was my timeline:
Technical and Aesthetic Tutorials
The most recent thing we did in class was give a short presentation on a tutorial we found on YouTube that will help us in our segments. Every individual was first asked on whether they wanted to find a tutorial on how to improve technical skills whilst filming or aesthetic skills.
In a nutshell, Technical skills basically meant how to manipulate the equipment in a certain way whilst Aesthetic, how to make the surroundings go with the way you want it to go.
I chose Technical, as I wanted to see the different possible ways I could go with for shooting my segment. Then the class was divided in to groups depending on what you chose. The groups then had to choose 1 tutorial that they all liked and present it, explaining why the group chose said video before showing it.
That was our video. We chose it because GoPros were known to be practical and high quality in terms of recording definitions. The video taught me especially, the different types of lenses to consider using and how to smoothen shots out to make them feel more natural if I end up using a GoPro. In the grand scheme of things, this video convinced me to highly consider using a GoPro.
So, first thing she ran us through was how exactly we were going to make this and the process in which we had to abide by in order to make this documentary. To summarise, we had to go make a storyboard (We also watched a video on this from Indy Mogul), a shooting plan, and a timeline (Which we made first).
Then, Ibu Lis went to a random number generator website and assigned us on a specific time frame accordingly. The class documentary would show the life of the class from 6 AM to 11 PM. My time frame was around 10 O'clock. Before I could properly plan it, I had to make a timeline.
This was my timeline:
"Week 1: Brainstorm without writing things down
Week 2: Proposal and finalize concept and theme for segment
Week 3: Storyboard
Week 4: Planning
Week 5: Shooting footage
Week 6: Re check footage and editing
Week 7: Hand segment in"
The time line was a part of our proposal as well and we did it to organise ourselves to get the storyboard and shooting plan done on time. In the proposal we stated a rough idea for my segment and how I'm going to film it.
"For my segment, I want to show me, an average student,
studying and finishing up on hw before playing on my phone before sleeping.
To accomplish this, I will be holding my camera whilst
showing the different object I’m going to be interacting with while also
providing narration. I will also ask my sister to help film in scene’s where
I’m not doing a pov shots.
This will be interesting because it shows the life of a
student and a break from whatever the other people will shoot."
I stated what, how, and why.
My intentions for doing this is to show the basic constant boring and dull life on a normal school day. I figured, this would help contrast what the others are going to be doing as I heard that one of my classmates, Kevin, was going to make his part about this surgery he was going to have. So my segment's main idea is to show the cold hard dull reality of what most people are usually doing at that time frame, whilst the other segments will be showing some really cool things I assume. It's both different yet kind of fitting with the other segments at the same time. This also goes in line to the original LiaD intentions, to showcase the true daily events of the people around us and to compare and contrast them.
To do that, I will make it as realistic as possible, long continuous shots, no music, purely diegetic, and all in one take (If I can trust whoever will film this).
After that, I went ahead and made my storyboard using storyboardthat.com, as Indy Mogul showed me. Whilst doing so, I decided to add a bit where I would be showing my whole house from the second floor (After showing how I get up the stairs) as my house is usually empty, to maybe emphasise on that lonely boring life message. This made me realise how much this project relates to the Statement of Inquiry as choosing what to show or alter during this project can really show who you are.
To do that, I will make it as realistic as possible, long continuous shots, no music, purely diegetic, and all in one take (If I can trust whoever will film this).
After that, I went ahead and made my storyboard using storyboardthat.com, as Indy Mogul showed me. Whilst doing so, I decided to add a bit where I would be showing my whole house from the second floor (After showing how I get up the stairs) as my house is usually empty, to maybe emphasise on that lonely boring life message. This made me realise how much this project relates to the Statement of Inquiry as choosing what to show or alter during this project can really show who you are.
 |
| My story board |
After storyboarding, all that's left is the shooting plan and the actual shooting itself, which I haven't gotten around to do.
I could imagine that the LiaD team went through quite a similar process. They planned out their documentary after deciding on the intention/message and decided to stick to it. The only difference would be that they didn't storyboard nor have a shooting plan, although it is possible they would do the former afterwards once they had all the submissions they needed.
By just going through what I already had, I can tell that making this documentary will allow the class members to develop their skills individually as everyone will plan, shoot, and edit their segment without any help from others. This refers back to the Global Context and Key Concept of this unit as well. Showcasing what we do on a daily basis helps us show who we are as individuals, our identity, and our relationships with the people around us.
I could imagine that the LiaD team went through quite a similar process. They planned out their documentary after deciding on the intention/message and decided to stick to it. The only difference would be that they didn't storyboard nor have a shooting plan, although it is possible they would do the former afterwards once they had all the submissions they needed.
By just going through what I already had, I can tell that making this documentary will allow the class members to develop their skills individually as everyone will plan, shoot, and edit their segment without any help from others. This refers back to the Global Context and Key Concept of this unit as well. Showcasing what we do on a daily basis helps us show who we are as individuals, our identity, and our relationships with the people around us.
Technical and Aesthetic Tutorials
The most recent thing we did in class was give a short presentation on a tutorial we found on YouTube that will help us in our segments. Every individual was first asked on whether they wanted to find a tutorial on how to improve technical skills whilst filming or aesthetic skills.
In a nutshell, Technical skills basically meant how to manipulate the equipment in a certain way whilst Aesthetic, how to make the surroundings go with the way you want it to go.
I chose Technical, as I wanted to see the different possible ways I could go with for shooting my segment. Then the class was divided in to groups depending on what you chose. The groups then had to choose 1 tutorial that they all liked and present it, explaining why the group chose said video before showing it.
That was our video. We chose it because GoPros were known to be practical and high quality in terms of recording definitions. The video taught me especially, the different types of lenses to consider using and how to smoothen shots out to make them feel more natural if I end up using a GoPro. In the grand scheme of things, this video convinced me to highly consider using a GoPro.
