Rough cut is made. so we now can see the flow of the documentary easier. Some extra shots will still be made if necessary.

people who have viewed our documentary are mostly satisfied with the second version of the rough cut. We’re still at discussion for what shots to be taken away or what shots to be added. There are some different opinions on couple of issues but we’ll figure out the best solution soon with help of comments from many people specially Daniel and Anne (the professional editor that we met on Tuesday).

Next steps are to add the logo of the shop in the beginning of the film and adding the credits with some of the still that Lydia had taken. I’m thinking that it will look great we’ll see. I have adjusted sound levels and some of the pictures for brightness and colours. so it’s looking much better now with better edits. Many more cutaways are added and also the super for the people’s name. I guess the film is improving a little by little. it’s good that we have enough time to improve it.

It’s amazing how the project is coming along and everyone has their parts to contribute.

I’m very much looking forward to see the website “russellsoldcornershop.com” wonder to what level this project could expand to.

today we’ve just viewed our rough cut with daniel.

I have made myself some notes to fix. things like the level of the sound or the edit between the shots.

The music seemed to be bit off track as we heard so it will be out and I’ll try two different ways to connect the opening sequence with the next scene either to continue with the clock ticking or another type of music.

and when we get the supers to explain the relationship between the people and Lola and George, there seems to be no problems with the flow of the documentary.

next things are to put in the main image (Russell’s old corner shop) , supers (will be made by lydia by tonight) and the credits at the end.

snapshot week9.

Difference from last week are.

• we have shot all the footages

• have a brief schedule for editing

• have started on logging all the footage onto a piece of paper so we can do paper edit

At this stage everyone are watching the clips to analise and make it easy to view what we have and what we’re going to use for the actual project.

While we are logging the clips and the transcripts, an an editor I’m also reading and searching for what others have done for their documentaries. what skills or the systems they have used that could help me.

Even if we could create a good documentary this time, I think that could have happen because of the time we spent on it. in other words I don’t think that we had much knowledge about making documentary rather learnt it as we went through. but I think it’s still very valuable because this won’t be forgettable when we met another project similar to this.

by this tuesday the transcripting will be done so I’m aimming to have the rough edit done in that week.

Online stuff is working out with Deti and Gloria and if we can view the rough cut to Deti it will help her in inderstanding the project and so the design of the website.

Lynn will be helping out in making the short clips to put up on the website.

We’re a week or two weeks behind the schedule but since we have given us plenty of time before the due date, there shouldn’t be too much trouble in finalising the project.

so far, everything’s going well.

From the beginning our group had individual sections on online documentary. And my part was ‘history and background’. So I was to search for the history of documentary, statistics of Australian documentaries (filmmakers, genre .etc). I have searched into government websites, books to define documentary.
I initially thought that my role was not totally related to ‘online documentary’ but to deal with existing model and the role. But through more meetings I realised that I also need to link and trying being more linear.
So I have searched into the origin of documentary, themes and contents, documentary makers, history and statistics in Australia, climates for current online documentary.
History section involved looking into other group members’ topics too, so some of them overlapped.

I must admit that I didn’t have enough skills for searching, before I was on this project.
As I was doing the history section of the project it required me enormous amount of research through Australian documentary.
Before I began researching, I didn’t have a single knowledge about Australian documentary filmmakers nor the films. So it was very hard for me at the start. First research relied very much on AFC’s reports or some other government given information because I couldn’t tell if the information was reliable.
We had meetings weekly basis and I have managed to attend every meeting with given tasks. And that helped me to do fair amount of work each week, instead of leaving every thing to the very last minute.
One of my weaknesses in-group work is that I get lazy unless I’m asked to do some tasks. But the strength is that I always manage and work hard for what’s assigned to me.

As a student myself, I always tend to like doing the research into something I already know or that interests me very much, otherwise it will be very boring through whole project. At first my interest area was online participatory journalism and how people believed or reacted. Documentary was something that I liked but didn’t know any about the makers or the industry. I mainly relied on online searching and books and databases from library. The existing data from government sites reduced extra searching. If necessary I wanted to explore with surveys and interviews, but because Dani was specifically doing the interview with filmmakers, the history part didn’t need these researching strategies.

1. Some of them actually have overlapped with others. To be honest, I guess if I took a different role in terms of the topic I might have done a better job because I had no ideas on related areas including filmmakers, associations or festivals to help me with through the project. It took me very long time to go one step forward.
2. Even though we’ve had weekly-based meetings, I guess I wasn’t sharing enough with others to seek for help or collaborate. So after the trial presentation, I could see what others were heading, and so know what to say for my finding relating to their research.

It was a great experience to dig into a topic because I could have gain enormous amount of knowledge for the industry and it’s very exciting to introduce a relatively new media to others. As well as presenting our topic, it was a good chance to hear other group’s research into the specific topic, because they were talking about different sector, I could learn a lot for most of Australian industry that I’ll meet in the future.
As a group research, it was beneficial because there were collaborations and sharing of ideas on how to approach, and to use each other’s strength. However, it was also hard when the strategy or the direction were taken differently. And next time, I’ m hoping to share more and collaborate actively,

I would like to reward myself with (D), especially for the amount of time and effort spent for the project.

Related posts:

findings about documentary in Australia/
history and stats
history of doco in Aus

today at the tutorial I have shared the idea with my tutor.
his name is Stephen.
the points that he said was.
1. be specific with intended audiencces/demographic
-Age group,race and so on.
2. there are many of the historical guide of the melb city already, so make sure that the project is different from them.

and he asked me to do.
-1page synopsis
-make working title
-name crew/positions
-intended location of shooting
-themes exploring
-statement of “why we are doing this”

the only problem is , because all the other members in my group are in different tute,

and, I think it’ll be too much for me to do all of these myself.!  so I’m going to see whether we can swap tutorial times so we can be working on it together.

also there was another group doing very similar to what we are doing.
and they are going to make DVDs to distribute to universities for international students to introduce melbourne’s local places.
but that’s going to involve a huge budget then,

but I think that the biggest difference will be that we will be using new media for the project and also, ours won’t be just like guide map, but will be made with interesting stories, unique story lines.

Q. why have you shot the film with mobile phone cameras?

“somebody had to do it”

in terms of developing the project, I want to do something that is needed for the society,
so it’s not for my own good but, something that everyone can take a piece.
at this stage not sure what to do.