The first thing that stood out to me when watching this documentary is the power of silence in its introduction. This silence mixed in with low naturalistic sounds allows this opening scene to hold the viewer's attention. The silence is mixed with incredibly powerful visuals which show Alex climbing El Capitan. This mix of seemingly peaceful audio with powerful video is a slight juxtaposition but it allows the viewer to be drawn to the visuals and the incredible bravery needed to take on this challenge. The natural sounds could be seen as showing that this is very much a normal day for Alex and this challenge is part of his everyday life. But, for the viewer, the sheer difference between the visuals and video allows them to take in the reality of what Alex is doing. The fact he could fall and die at any second also brings home this message of skill and bravery. This has made me think once again about how we tackle audio in our documentary. The fact that our subject matter is loud and visually stunning will definitely play into our hands as it gives us many options. The fact that motorsport is filled with powerful sounds will give moments of silence in our film so much more power. Therefore I have gone through my script and showed George and Cailan the moments where we should consider having these powerful moments of silence and reflection. I think we have identified the Diary Room sequences as well as the South Downs where we want to show reflection and the audio in these scenes will be vital. We have considered paying for a soundtrack for our documentary which is crafted just for us, but because of the cost elsewhere in the project, it simply is not possible. Therefore we will be maximising the fantastic creators on the internet and ensuring our documentary has a consistent theme throughout. We will then be focusing on the scenes which I have highlighted as areas where we can use the backing track or natural sounds to create powerful and honest moments of reflection in Dream Chaser.
The use of exterior contributors in "Free Solo" allows the viewer to be informed about this journey and how they are preparing to be involved with it. These moments are very important to the narrative of the story as they give further context to who Alex is and why he wants to go on this journey. It is important for any documentary to have these other opinions, as otherwise, it is very easy to miss a whole portion of the story from other perspectives. Knowing the importance of these personal moments, I have put emphasis on ensuring the scene with my Dad and the ones with my teammate Sam are given enough time to explain their side of this journey. Without these more personal moments, our documentary lacks the depth and reasoning and could lead the viewer to feel as if they only know me through my own words. Having the voice of another person in this documentary allows the viewer to be further connected to my story as they start to see all of the different angles. This backstory and further knowledge is very important as it allows the viewer to have the story of why we are going on this journey. This will also be very important in our documentary as we need to establish rather quickly what this journey means to me and give the viewer a better connection. Knowing this has allowed me to make decisions as to where in the story we will hear from these contributors as well as thinking what kind of answers we want to get out of these filming days. Without this, I feel I may not have ensured we have the right questions and prompts for our contributors which could have led to the message we are trying to highlight being lost.
The use of minimalistic graphics in the Alex Honnold documentary really ensured the viewer is connected to a unique subject like rock climbing. Without these graphics, I personally feel the magnitude of what he is attempting would have been lost. This made me seriously think about the use of graphics in our documentary. Like rock climbing, motorsport is a very niche sport and one that needs some explaining. Some of this can be done through voiceover but we should definitely use graphics at points in our project to ensure the viewer knows exactly what is happening as well as the scale of the challenge. The two main areas where I can see a visual graphic being useful are for the Kickstarter money going up as well as how the money is distributed. The Kickstarter is a fundraising source that is not very interesting to explain so a visual graphic showing more money going into the page could be much more exciting. Without a graphic showing distribution of these funds, it is an arbitrary number which does not mean much to the viewer. If explained to them, they realise the importance of funding in motorsport because every part of it is very expensive. The use of graphics will be important in explaining some of the more boring aspects of motorsport and this is a way we can make it visually interesting. We may feel in the edit that we want more graphics, but I am wary about having too many as then it would feel too much like a "How to do Motorsport" documentary, which is something we are certainly trying to avoid. We will see in the edit if we need more than the two I anticipate.
Off the record chats with Alex Honnold really allow us into his mind, especially before such a big adventure. These chats take place in his motor home (where he lives), on the road in his car as well as when he is out and about. They all allow us to connect to Alex in a way which is much more authentic in comparison to when he is prompted to say something by the production team. I see this style being very important when we are following someone on a journey and allowing the viewer into the main contributors deepest thoughts. It is vital in allowing us to connect to the story and therefore I have adapted my current plans to ensure we capture these moments of honesty along our journey. We have already seen on occasions in the making of Dream Chaser, the importance of these scenes and we have filmed them to good effect. These work well alongside the more staged sequences such as the "Diary Room" which is very controlled. They give us the backstory to this journey and these "off the cuff" chats are important in showing the viewer how I am changing along this journey. I think we can further improve these sequences by capturing them on a more frequent basis. We have captured them when scripted up until this point, but there is no harm in doing more to give us a choice in the edit. This along with ensuring the composition of the shots are better than we have previously completed will ensure cinematic consistency throughout our documentary. Going deeper than what we may see as comfortable also ensures the viewer gets to really know the character. That was especially powerful in "Free Solo" as we heard Alex speak about subjects where he was not in the comfort zone. This gives the viewer the full perspective on who he is as a person. We should use this to our advantage in our project and I have changed some of the questions in the Diary Room accordingly to ensure I am challenged and we get to see my honest thoughts. Generally the "off the cuff" chats we have done really ensure that viewer connection is as good as possible, but I feel in the edit we will want to have more of these to show my progression as a contributor.
The film grade and backing tracks allow "Free Solo" to have another layer of depth. The subtle film grade allows the key colours to pop as well as ensuring the rockface looks as daunting as possible. This is done by taking out colours from scenes building up to the clip which include the rockface. Taking out these colours ensure it has little emotion and brings out the challenge and shows how unpredictable it could be. The subtle backing track in the documentary allows the viewer to feel a further connection to Alex in whatever scenario he is in. The music sometimes subtly fades in to build up the tension. But at other times, the production team suddenly cuts to music with a different effect. This sudden jump doesn't allow for emotion to be brought in slowly, rather it shocks the viewer and in doing so it makes these moments hit the viewer hard as they did not see it coming. We want to follow a similar style grade for Dream Chaser, a simple but effective one. This will still take its time as we have filmed on a number of different cameras and matching them up in the edit will be a task in itself. We will also be changing the grade in certain scenes with further meaning, such as the Diary Room and the South Downs. These sequences will stand out to help enforce the message we are trying to portray. This means we will have to spend some time as a team in the editing phase deciding what exact grade we will be using. I have reference material from pre-production which I think will allow us to differentiate between our key scenes and other parts of the journey. The backing track is already something we have been looking into and I have found a number of possible options for us already. We are going for a very mellow and minimalistic style of music and that needs to be consistent throughout. This work on music will get more intense once in the edit to ensure we have a consistent style, but one that is still powerful. This will be a big team effort to ensure we do not jump from one style to the next.
The old pictures and video used in "Free Solo" allow the viewer to connect further with his story and understand where this journey started. Without these, the viewer lacks a lot of the context as to why he is going on this journey and why it means so much. They ground the story and make it much more personal and doing this gives the end result of achieving the climb much greater impact for the viewer. We feel a part of the story and because of that, everything that happens is much more powerful. A lot of this is down to the backstory and pictures that we are shown at the start. Before even viewing this documentary, we had a similar idea in the form of the "Diary Room". We initially, however, were not going to include pictures on the screen as we had a whole sequence dedicated to sharing old pictures. However, I feel we should definitely include some pictures in the Diary Room sequence before my Dad as it allows us to build up to what we speak about in that part. Thankfully I have some high-quality picture as well as some video from my first time at Brands Hatch and that will ensure the viewer knows that this has been a dream for a long time. These pictures will be edited in a way which allows the viewer to know it is the past and I think they are essential in showing the viewer how I have grown alongside the sport I love. I think this addition will ground the documentary and I am hoping it will work when we get into the edit. The resources available to us will allow our documentary to be even more powerful and I am excited to see how this increases the impact within these scenes.
Other opinions are important in "Free Solo" as we build to the climax. These opinions increase the jeopardy as they allow us to see what other people, who know how hard the challenge is, are thinking. This perspective is different from that of the main contributor as they can see the realities of some situations which the main contributor doesn't want to touch on. It allows us to see the whole picture of the journey and its scale. Without these interviews, I feel we lose the full challenge and these extra opinions really underline the scale of the project. External interviews are vital in "Dream Chaser" as well because, without these, we don't get the expert opinion on what I should be doing as a contributor. I would like to include more family in the documentary as they would be able to further show the challenge I have ahead of me. If people who are close to me could broadcast what they think about my journey, it would be powerful for my documentary. However, we have so much content to include and already a similar sequence with my Dad, we may not have time to include it. I would like to have included more in my script but I have to be realistic about the time limit we have and I cannot see us having time to include any more than the sequence with my Dad. Nonetheless, the challenge of chasing my dream will be really clear in our project and it will be exciting to see it come together.
The drone shots in the "Free Solo" documentary are powerful as they are used sparingly and are all unique. The documentary lends itself to drone shots because of the crazy challenge Alex has set himself. However, I was impressed that they were not overused. It would have been easy to use them in every single sequence but keeping them to only the most powerful moments helped the documentary feel controlled. We have access to a drone in our documentary and we shall be using it most in sequences to get an establishing shot. However, when on shoot dates we have been obtaining a number of possible establishing shots as I realise a drone shot to start every sequence would feel very repetitive. It will be our job in the edit to ensure we space out the drone shots accordingly and when we use the drone, we use shots that are powerful and add something special. We have been recording a lot of options, which will give us the choice in the edit which is very important.
Finally, the "Free Solo" documentary did a great job of using the actuality and b-roll they had recorded throughout each sequence to transition from one to the next. Doing this and using L-Cuts ensures that the sequences transition smoothly and allow them not to be jarring as a viewer. We can use this tool in our documentary as we hope to continue our pattern of obtaining a large number of b-roll on every single shoot day we are on. Doing this will allow our edit to be a smooth process and ensure that scenes link together. On the mock edits we have done so far, the biggest issue we have is the transition from scene to scene. I know we have the capability as a team to continue capturing this content and it will benefit our documentary in the end. The use of music and archive material will also allow us to have seamless transitions. These transitions are vitally important in our documentary as otherwise, it would be very easy for it to feel like a bunch of separate sequences that have no link. Of course, we have the running link of "chasing your dream", but that needs to come across in the edit and it is all of our jobs to make that the case.
A lot of lessons have been learned through watching "Free Solo" and the knowledge obtained has allowed me to further update and upgrade my plans to be on a level where I would expect our documentary to be. The key points going forward are to continue capturing actuality and then focus on ensuring the story is broadcast in a seamless way in the edit. It is very exciting to realise the potential that our documentary has, we just need to ensure we give the attention to detail it deserves and I can see the story being very powerful.
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