The documentary on HOME was our last project for the Sound and Image course and the one which was the lengthiest and most challenging one. I think we spent over a month working on it. Also I can relate to this documentary a lot being away from home currently and missing it like anything so it was kind of special to me. The film basically had three components, vox pops, interviews and abstract footage, and each of them were shot separately, one after the other during our class timings. We worked in two groups of four since there were only eight people in our tutorial group. My group consisted of myself, Anurit, Cameron and Megan. It was a pleasure working with these guys.
Vox pops
Recording vox pops was our first task. We rehearsed with all the equipment and different techniques to be nice and polite to people amongst ourselves first in the class. As a part of pre production, we decided upon our location, which was the Alumini Courtyard at RMIT City Campus and we came up with several questions which were to be asked. It was only on the day of the shoot that we decided our roles. I was the interviewer, Megan was on camera, Anurit was doing sound and Cameron was approaching people and convincing them to answer a few questions for us about home. It was just one hour before sunset and we got nice and even sunlight and the location was great as well. We found a few people over there who were willing to answer our questions. After the vox pops, we recorded a bit of atmosphere sound. The whole thing went quite well, or at least that’s what we thought at the moment. Later when I checked the footage, I saw that the framing of most of the vox pops was not correct. They did not have look room, instead there was negative space on the other side of the frame. I guess Megan was not really sure about the framing for vox pops but that’s alright. She realized her mistake later and it’s all a part of a learning process. We got good content with good audio so we were happy.
Abstract footage
This was another very important part of the documentary. In vox pop and interview based documentaries, you need some b-roll or abstract footage to put in between to make your overall film more visually appealing and interesting. You cannot base your documentary on just visuals of people speaking. We were given the task to shoot abstract footage on our Wednesday tutorial which starts at 5.30 pm. When we got out to shoot, it was almost dark already. We went to the Carlton area near Lygon street and took some shots of houses, buildings, people walking and families etc. After a few minutes it started raining so we had to go inside and stop filming. We filmed the rest of the abstract footage during the day on our intensive class after we got done with our interviews. We took shots in the city, around the State Library, Melbourne Central and around RMIT. We even shot a short time lapse.
Interviews
Recording interviews was the most complicated and time consuming task for this documentary so we were supposed to do it at our intensive class. We decided upon the questions beforehand and we practised interview recording in class with basic lighting and audio. When we arrived in the morning, we found out that two groups would work together to make the shoot quicker. We worked with the other group in our tutorial which consisted of Liang, Alex, Elizabeth and Abdullah. For our documentary, we were supposed to interview the members of the other group and vice versa. Unfortunately, Anurit and Megan from our group were unable to come due to some reasons. So we basically had only two members in our group, which meant that the other group would only have two interviews. We then decided to work together as one group and have the option to use all the interviews amongst ourselves so we basically merged our questions and ideas. We chose a room on the 3rd floor of building 9 which had good lighting and a good view of the city through the window. We thought lighting would not be a problem, but it turned out to be the biggest problem. We were trying to use the window in the background for the nice view but because of the sunlight, the subject appeared quite dark even with proper lighting. We then spent around half an hour moving around the lights, changing the intensity, moving around the subject and what not. We finally did achieve what we wanted and the lighting looked perfect. We then set up the audio and frame again and started recording. Once everything was set up properly, it did not take much time. We switched around roles after every interview and we got some really interesting content since most of us were from different countries. The audio was very clear. Overall, a very fun and tiring day but it was worth it.
Editing
After the shoot, we were supposed to edit all the stuff and make it into a short documentary. Edit is my favourite part of any production. I started off editing in the editing suites at uni. I had only cut up the vox pops but then the time of the tutorial ended and it was also that last one. So after that, we were supposed to find time ourselves and edit our documentaries. I, for some reason cannot sit in the editing suite for too long and also I had assignments for other courses to do as well, so I copied the footage into my external hard drive and decided to edit it at home. This way I could edit it whenever I wanted to and I won’t have to book an editing suite.
So first up, I cut up all the interviews and vox pops and got all the important content on different sequences. Then I made a sequence for rough cut and started shaping up the documentary by putting up the vox pops and interviews. I made sure not to make it a drag and not to be too repetitive. I started off by some footage of people describing home, then telling the difference between a house and a home, then describing the phrase home is where the heart is, what do they miss about their home and if they consider Melbourne their home or not. I mixed up the interviews and vox pops to make it interesting. After that I put abstract footage after little intervals on top of the whole film to give it a nice visual appeal. Then I made a sequence for final cut. In this I shortened the film to around 3:30 and adjust the audio to bring everything at one level. Added background music. After that I duplicated this sequence and renamed it to colour. I used 3 way colour corrector and RGB curves for colour grading. Didn’t have to do that much. Just gave the film a neutral feel and adjust the overexposed shots a bit. I think the overall product was quite good and the film shaped up to be better than I expected.
![snap docu](https://adilhasan90.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/snap-docu.jpg?w=656)