Institutions

The Distributor company we chose was Soda Pictures (a Thunderbird Company) because they support indie cinema and they had been a part of many good documentaries which we used as research for our opening sequences such as Teenage (Dir. Matt Wolf).

Soda Pictures is an Anglo-Canadian film distributor of art house, independent and world cinema.


Furthermore Soda Pictures has been known to work with indie producers so they will fit well with our company of 'The Documentary Producers' they believe in the three E's...Experience. Expertise. Excellence. They believe in first time filmmakers and documenting major parts of history, this is why I feel this would work for our doc because ours is about a culture shift of generations to do with tattoos.

Peer Feedback

This is feedback from the media classes on my First draft of my opening sequence for media

Holding Shot steady where appropriate
Everyone said this was excellent, that all my shots were steady where appropriate, that the camerawork was excellent.

Framing a Shot
All the framing of the shots was said to be excellent including everything that was relevant and appropriate.

Using a Variety of shots & Distances
I used all the shot types (extreme close up, close up, mid, long shot, extreme lone shot) and did so at different angels (high &low). I used the shots appropriately keeping interest through the montage but apparently there were too many close ups, I will look at a way of taking out some of the close up although some said that the close up were like-able.

Using Titles Appropriatly
Titles were seen to vary from Proficient to excellent, they were known to be appropriate in style, font and colour, the simplicity of them shows how it is a high budget film and goes along with the documentary feel of the film but it was thought the spacing of the titles needed to be looked at.

Mise en Scene
The mise en scene of the tattoo parlour helped with giving to the topic of Tattoos being focus very clearly. The colours overall of the films were apparently very nice, it wasn't all the same colour throughout making it nice to look at but some people said the constant light to dark changes of the shots was not very good.

Editing so that the meaning is apparent
My editing was applauded and appropriate for the genre of a documentary. It was said that the opening starts more generally around the subject and then gets to the point, that the shots are in a good order. The interview is a bit too long though because it feels like it is the end of a film.

Shot transitions and other effects
Shots cut a lot because there are no real transition effects on the narration montages but apparently this goes well because it goes along with the narration and what the narrative that is trying to be put across and because of this it flows well. Also because of the transitioning from shot to shot being fast it gave the film pace which is what I wanted I wanted the fast pace top replicate the craziness of society and then to slow down once the complete narrative had been dropped.

Using sound with Images and editing
The music is really good and sets the atmosphere but sometimes the narrations. The tattoo parlour sound is loud and what is being said can barely be heard, something needs to be done here to improve. Subtitles could be used during the interviews.

Props Research

There were no specific props we would have to get for the story/opening scene, most things used in the shots/scenes we get would just part of the mise en for example

So for this shot we were trying to show how we are creatively inspired from the online world so we needed a computer and pc in shot; it wasn't a prop but part of the scene that was needed.

This is the same throughout the opening, just look at the storyboard and you can what parts made up scene sand this is what my team and I discussed when creating our shots. More examples are the tattoo needles in the tattoo parlour, art equipment in the artists scene etc etc.

Location Recce

These are picture and descriptions of a few specific places from places that we plan to shoot in.

This is the tattoo parlour which has agreed to let us interview inside and film the surrounding shop area.



This is a main road which is great for a time-lapse or shots of hustle and bustle that are at the beginning of the storyboard.



This is where we will shoot the tracking shot of someone taking a picture, for the creative part of the montage and narration. It works two ways with the graffiti art in the background and someone taking a picture - two creative things.

This is another place where we will film the montage shots of hustle and bustle, it is a busy high-street on weekend (when we plan to shoot) so it will be perfect.

Script (New)

After the feedback from Mrs Field that had one point that our script focused too much on that every one conformed to the norm and that we weren't really presenting that the documentary was about expression within society and that sometimes the use of big words can become pretentious and bore the watcher/listener. There fore we re wrote the script, keeping it simple and with the key values of the documentary in mind.

Film Opening Pitch

This was my initial idea to do a documentary for the film opening on tattoos and then my group decided to take my idea on and add what they had too it. So Ben had an idea for drama with culture, we are going to include culture as a focus of the tattoo documentary and then Aaron' film was very artsy (similar to Tree of Life) so we decided to incorporate these artsy shots to the look of some parts of the doc intro.

We used my initial presentation and adapted it for our group presentation...

Genre (Documentary) Conventions

The conventions of documentaries were mentioned in the film pitch.

In the narration video I mentioned a script, the script will be a piece of narration that goes over the top of the opening two minutes. This is a common convention of the documentary genre with voice overs in a clear distinctive voice helping the narrative of the film and encouraging the watcher to listen and think.
All of our footage will be "real footage" none of it is acted or re created for the film. Interviews and real places that are not fictionally made will be included which is a must with most documentaries.
We be using archive footage on two occasion, one is the video of the catwalk (which is shot 8) and the other is in the form of a photo collage (shot 27) of hipsters all looking the same which will be collected online.
Interview exerts will be used to provide thought provoking opinion and information. Which is mentioned in the narration video right at the end of, it will be one of the last shots we get.
We will have non-diegetic sound throughout the whole of the opening, maybe taken away for interview exerts, to add an ambience and atmosphere to the opening.
Visual Coding - the Mise en Scene of the whole opening sequence will add to the realness, hint at narrative and go along with narration. For example in the interviews the person being interviewed will maybe have tattoos or piercings or in the background there might be tattoo art all in the background on walls etc.

Script (Old)

Here is the old script Nathan wrote for the narration of the beginning of the opening sequence. As you can see there are annotations put on there splitting up different montage/scenes of the opening sequence, what shots to get, there timings etc.

Letter Of Permission

This is the permission letter that our teacher wrote for us in case we got stopped at any point and someone would need information but when we were filming we were either in the tattoo parlour where we had permission from the owner and customers to shoot or we were on the highstreet of town, a public space where it is completely legal to film. We ran into no problems.

Shooting Schedule

This the shooting schedule of everything we shot, when and where.

Production Diary

Our group has decided to create a Tattoo Documentary and this is the production diary...
Nathan Blog - http://gbhsasnathan.blogspot.co.uk/
My Blog - http://gbhsasbengriffiths.blogspot.co.uk/
Aaron's Blog - http://gbhsasaaronhunt.blogspot.co.uk/

Production Diary

11/11/2015
First Meeting - We created and discussed our initial ideas together and we all assessed certain aspects of those ideas. We did this by viewing and introducing our initial ideas to the rest our group, we explained the main aspects of our idea, how we were going to make it into a good film pitch, how we will create enigma, how we would present the credits and we explained where the filming of each of our ideas will occur. We did this because when we come to a conclusion of whose idea to go with we will be able to incorporate ideas from each of our individual pieces this will allow our final film pitch to be original and interesting, this allowed us to accurately create our film pitch. We also presented where we got our initial ideas from for example I was inspired by Tree Of Life, Nathan was inspired from the many documentaries I have watched and Aaron by culture drama like Top boy and we presented scenes of our evidence of these different ideas of films and this allowed us to be able to understand what we would need to incorporate into the final product and what to include into our final film pitch.

12/11/2015
Second Meeting - After analysing each of our initial ideas for a film pitch we chose to use Aaron's Tattoo Documentary idea as a base of our film pitch because this idea was original (no one does a documentary as their film opening) and challenging. Then we worked on trying to include all of the groups ideas into the final product. Building from my initial Tattoo Documentary idea and what needs to be included in a documentary, we added the use of artsy/cinematic shots from my film idea to make the documentary a much nicer thing to visually look at and then my I idea of culture to be a focus of the documentary. We decided on the main focuses of the Documentary would be, how culture of today is affecting people into getting tattoos? is it inked celebs? Or is it a need for individualism within conformist culture/society? Or are they just easier to get? These questions were highlighted in the film pitch.

13/11/2015
Third Meeting - After discussing our final idea for our film pitch we discussed and researched evidence to assist on how to create a good and interesting documentary. We researched tattoo documentaries, filler shots and how a professional interview should be presented. We also researched a variety of angles and shots too keep our documentary interesting. We discussed how we would present that the documentary is based around tattoos but still be able to create enigma about the subject of the film. We chose to do this by not mentioning the word tattoo and only to hint around the idea of tattoos in the first parts of the opening and then we will drop the theme/narrative fully presenting the fact that our film opening is based around tattoos.

14/11/2015Fourth Meeting - Nathan and Aaron focused on presenting research and the information we had collected for the documentary on our blogs. We made sure we had an idea of how to film our film opening and we discussed necessary equipment that will be needed to make our documentary, consisting of camera's and tripods etc. Then we discussed the costumes that could be used in our film openings and what costumes will be the most appropriate to use for different scenes such as interviews. Myself and Nathan discussed where to film our scenes and we found several tattoo parlors that we could potentially use to film our film opening. We thought that we should use more than one tattoo parlor so we have lots of different environments and people to shoot. We will interview those thinking about having a tattoo, people with some tattoos with meaning and people that are covered in tattoos and this will allow our film opening to be interesting because there will be a range of 'characters' in our documentary opening rather than the same 'characters' repeated throughout our film opening.

16/11/2015
Fifth Meeting - This meeting we began doing our storyboard but a relaxed storyboard, with post it notes we drew and wrote down the shots we thought we would want and need within the actual
I worked on the Mood board, this will present our inspiration films and shots we have looked at to inspire the creation our film and this will show the films, genre and types of shots we used from different films to think of the shots we have thought to use and where we have chosen the shots from.
Aaron began to write up reviews from our film pitch which were written by other students in our Media class and our teachers, Nathan gave advice on the answers to the questions asked that were :
How will you make it less like a T.V program?
What is the message of our film?
(These have both been answered on the film Film Pitch)
These are the two main questions asked by the students and this was expected. Documentary films can often be interpreted as a program in the pitch process, like a reality doc mix for example 24 hours in A&E.
In this meeting we also have discussed that we have a working title which is Tatted Generation and at the end of all of our filming we will create a final film title as this will be easier to do as we can base our title around a certain scene or a certain part of our film opening. We have chosen to use the title Tatted Generation for now as our generation will be the most tatted generation history (it is thought) and we have based our film documentary around this because there are several questions that can be asked through this topic therefore we can create enigma through this topic about tattoos.17/11/2015
Sixth Meeting - In this meeting we considered which shots will be best to use and if there are any shots that we could add if our film opening is too short or not detailed enough and the more shots we have, the more detail that will be included in our film opening. We have also chosen to include shot angles in different sections of the shots will use in our film opening, "Interview Shot", "Filler Shots" and "Montage Shots"and this will include the type of shots we will use and how we will present these including sound, Mise en Scene, location, and brightness of the shot as we will be able to change and add effects to our shots to make our scenes as interesting as possible.
I researched how documentaries present credits and titles and the way and how long the titles last and we will be able to estimate how long our film opening could become by estimating how long each shot will last.

18/11/2015
Seventh Meeting - In our seventh meeting Aaron and Nathan used the script I written for the narration of the film and we put to use the shots we had created with the "Post it note storyboard" deciding on which shots we will use and how long each shot lasts for. We described the types of shots we were going to use and we drew how we would like every shot to look like. It was something I hadn't enough of on past tasks was the detail in the description of the storyboard, Nathan covered all the aspects of the shot in the description this time so Nathan knew exactly what to film.
I focused on several jobs that were necessary for the film opening; Music Research and Title Research.

19/11/2015
Eighth Meeting - In this meeting I covered the Risk Assessment about us filming throughout Chelmsford and the risks we could encounter. I is also carrying on more with Title ideas and the most effective font to use that will work for our tattoo documentary and we discussed as a group different ideas for a suitable and original idea for a tattoo documentary and we are deciding as a group the most suitable font to use. As a group we checked one another's blog to tell each other if there are blog posts missed or not in enough detail as they should be and this allows our group to stay on task and we will be doing a blog check every so often to make sure each job is being completed and not left unfinished. Nathan and Aaron checked the script and shot list and we ensured that the shots we have chosen are correct and we discussed how we will perfect our camera angles.

20/11/2015
Ninth Meeting - In this meeting I with the aid of me, focused on writing emails for every tattoo parlour shop that could be considered to visit to our film opening scene. The initial email can be seen on a separate blog post. After this I researched and found a variety of available tattoo parlours that we could email and access if the parlours accepted our request.
After this task Aaron focused on editing the storyboard voice recording and the images of the storyboard to match the voice on Adobe Premiere. Aaron recorded Nathan talking about the storyboard and the basic idea of our film opening then I focused on editing the images and storyboard to match what shot he is talking about and the image of the correct shot. Once this was completed I uploaded it to YouTube, it can be found on another separate blog post.

23/11/2015
Tenth Meeting - In this meeting Aaron started to research a catwalk clip that we could use in our film as we would not be able to film this ourselves. Aaron and Nathan discussed which shots would be taken after school and during the weekend and which shots we are able to without a tattoo parlour and which shots we need to record throughout school or other places to record shots. We set up a list of where we will record each shot to be able to record in our houses and other locations. We also went to an art classroom where we asked permission of a student if we would be able to record her doing art work, this would allow us to complete a shot which we will film during our next media lesson. Aaron and I then called a nearby tattoo parlour to see if we could stop by during the weekend to do some interviews and get some shots, we were told that we could stop by during the week to see them.
After school we went to my house to film a short clip of the online generation scene in our film opening which consists of someone looking online on a computer and on social media.24/11/2015
Eleventh Meeting - In this meeting we discussed about marketing and distribution and I began making the blog post for that and the rest of us got on with out blog work. Nathan also filmed someone in a art classroom doing her artwork, which was a shot we needed.

25/11/2015
Twelfth Meeting - In this meeting we tested a short recording of a tracking shot of Aaron taking a image and we will most likely record this in a different location than not at school as the atmosphere and surroundings can be more interesting than the surroundings at school.
I emailed another tattoo parlour that responded and are allowed to record we just need to find out when we are able to film.

26/11/2015
Thirteenth Meeting - In this meeting Aaron completed the shot list and uploaded it to his blog. I carried on researching the organisation and layout of the titles and how titles in documentary films should be presented. As a group we decided to use 'Tatted Generation' as a title and unless we think of a different and better title we are going to keep the title. We chose this title as our generation is supposed to be the most tatted generation as it is very easy and tattoos can be seen as a fashion sense in this generation. Also we just needed something to call it.

28/11/2015
Fourteenth Meeting/ First Day Filming- In this meeting we began filming and the tattoo parlour we went into is called 'Sacred Tattoo' (http://sacredtattoos.co.uk) we interviewed a tattoo artist called Alex and we asked interesting questions which had even more interesting answers and we have recorded the interviews and this went well more than expected and this resulted in good footage which we will begin editing in our next media lesson and there was a good amount of evidence of our day, Nathan also shot a lot of filler footage of "random" things around the tattoo parlour and people getting tattoos. We asked the customers at Sacred Tattoo if we were able to interview and record and take images of the tattoos they were currently having and we are able to interview one customer and take recordings of the other customers. Then after that we filmed other footage that we could get whilst in town, all can be viewed on the shooting schedule.

30/11/2015
Fifteenth Meeting - In this meeting Nathan began editing the beginning of our film opening after, importing the footage and getting it onto the timeline but there were many complications to editing on a mac so Nathan went onto a windows computer and got all the footage on an external hardrive and then began editing but Nathan couldn't really edit until the narration was recorded.

1/12/2015
Sixteenth Meeting - In this meeting Nathan went to music to record the narration script with their good quality mics and in a sound proofed environment, once this was done Nathan took the narration and went back to begin editing. Myself and Aaron began to start subtitling the interviews.

2/12/2015
Seventeenth Meeting - In this meeting I covered and reduced scenes that shake and parts of scenes that are not focused and edited the scenes to see whether the issue of a part of a scene can be solved. Aaron added more posts to his blog. Nathan edited.
After school Nathan went to his friend's Poppy's house to film a few shots that Arron needed of someone looking in a mirror and a close up of someones eye.

3/12/2015
Eighteenth Meeting - In this meeting all my editing could not be found so Aaron had to re start, Aaron continued to edit late after school but Nathan got the bare bones of our first draft done.

4/12/2015
Nineteenth Meeting - Aaron Finished the titles for the first draft on the edit, Aaron created a poster that would be used to market the film. Aaron exported the first draft of the opening. I began writing subtitles for the interviews.

7/12/2015
Twentieth Meeting - In class we watched everyone's first drafts and got to hear a little bit of feedback. I started finishing the subtitles for the interviews

8/12/2015
Twenty-first Meeting - spent the lesson writing feedback for people. No improvement on edit. Had a talk with Mrs Field about what we can do to our opening.10/12/2015
Twenty-second Meeting - Nathan and I rewrote the narration at the beginning of our film opening and a teacher feedback recommended. I had to re-write the subtitles as we chose different interview scenes.

11/12/2015
Twenty-third Meeting - I focused on subtitles and Nathan re-recorded the narration and I focused on archive footage and updating research for our blog.

Research evidence

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/19/tattoos-generational-divide_n_6445760.html

Provided the incentive and information of employment discrimination, that will be a focus of this documentary, and will be hinted at as a question to be answered in the opening sequence. i can use a quote like this to help with questions for interviews.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKagSW4s244
I used this documentary to get an idea of "real" shots that I can include in my documentary and how to maybe use archive footage. Also it gave an idea of having to use the production company first in the title sequence.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t9vwc
This BBC Two documentary gave me the idea of questions that could be asked for getting tattoos that could be explored through the documentary and lead onto the "choice and consequence" reality of life or getting the tattoo and what it does for your future.





http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27115348
This an article on other countries (there is more than what is shown in the image) views on tattoos and some jobs in Britain that dont allow tattoos in certain places or to be visible.

Storyboard

This is the first page of the Storyboard and this is showing the beginning shots which are mainly montage, quick second shots.

This page is mainly cinematic shots and artsy shots, which will be mainly shots of Nathan on a computer then, someone doing art and there are quick transitions.

This page is where the interview takes place and there will be images flashing on screen and then the title will appear.

This is our Storyboard Narration and Nathan spoke about the Storyboard and he included shots that we will add and shots we could possibly add as well as talking about each shot and explaining how we will record each shot.

Archive Footage

Archive Footage For Our Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOjOHly7gig

- This video is from YouTube and this footage from a Catwalk for TopShop and we will use a small short clip as we are not able to record a catwalk as we do not have this footage.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhtowFSi0Vk

- This is another video that we have chosen to add to our short film and this another cat walk and we have chosen a part of this clip, which is a short clip of Stephen James (a model) walking who is covered in tattoos and therefore this will hint that our documentary is about tattoos.

Teacher Feedback

First Draft Feedback - Teacher Feedback


Mrs Brookes


WWW - Camera shots, Editing and Mise En Scene.

EBI - link between intro and tattoo where is that? Voice over a little to complex maybe shorter and shorter. When you walk into the parlour, you need intro. Job title needed. Lower tattooing sound. Cut out "yeah". Need more tattoo scenes.



Mrs Field


WWW - Shots are very well done. Editing is good.

EBI - Need to simplify the narration at the beginning of the film opening. Improve sound of the tattoo noise. Job titles should be added. Need to remove the constant "yeah".


Mr Amato


Really like the titles but can be positioned better.

Feels TV Documentary rather than a film, this could be because of the instant voice over. More instant talking and change the font that you use as it goes on and on and I do not like the late titles. Subject matter hands you some potentially beautiful shots that wait really evident.


Improvements from Feedback


We can improve from this feedback as we are able to go into other tattoo parlours and we are able to film more tattoos and we can film other tattoo parlours to change the scenery and we are able to film for filler shots and to make the documentary film more interesting by using different scenes. We are able to cut out the "yeah" throughout the interview and we will use subtitles to be able to understand what Alexsandrs Hirsfelds (the tattoo artist) his answers to the questions which we may display almost as subtitles to understand the questions and the answers and this will solve the problem of not understanding his voice clearly. We will be attempting to reduce the sound of the tattoo gun and we will most likely use a program like audacity to remove or to quieten the noise of the tattoo gun.

Evidence of planning

This is an image presenting Nathan beginning with a range of ideas for shots that we could add in our film opening and myself and Nathan began this and I did help with ideas to add to our film opening.

This image showing how we presented our shots, we used a piece of paper for the sticky notes to attach to and on the piece of paper had one of three titles, "montage", "interview" and "fillers" and we chose to show our shots this way to present the shots that we have thought to use that would be good to use in our tattoo documentary.

This is another image showing how we stuck every shot we done for each different title and this allowed us to add and take away shots that are a good idea and are not a good idea and shots that are necessary for our film opening.

This image is showing me and Nathan working on the storyboard and this is after we decided which shots to use and we wrote onto a storyboard sheet which shots to use.

Group Photo

This is our group for our final film task.

Aaron's job was to stay on top of research and make sure everyone's blog is up to date and he focused on shots for the cinematic parts of our film opening,

Nathan's job was to do basic editing and narration for our film opening and he was the person who had the original film pitch idea and we began with his idea.

My job was to focus on subtitles and research for titles and music to be able add this to our film opening and to make sure that there is nothing missed for research for our film opening. I had the idea of our film to be based around culture.

Shot List

Shot list:

Shot 1 - 6 will be a short montage of a 'hustle and bustle' of people walking, a cashier, buses. This could vary depending on shots which could be 1 second instead of 0.5 seconds.

Shot 7 - This shot will last 4 seconds and it will focus on a young and old person at a bus stop, this will be a still long shot.

Shot 8 - 11 will include 4 shots that last 2 seconds each which will show a catwalk clip, someone reading a celeb magazine, a girl looking at herself in the mirror and a extreme close up with a blurred background.

Shot 12 - 18 will include a shot beginning at a extreme close up on someone typing on a keyboard then transitioning to a mouse, then a fast zoom out to a high right angle facing down, then to a mid shot over the right shoulder slowly going closer to the computer then to a POV shot of looking at YouTube and Instagram.

Shot 19 - 23 will begin at a foot and then slowly go upwards from the shoe to the person looking through a camera, we have done this to present the creativity of our generation. Then there is a transition which is from zooming into the camera and transitioning to someone grabbing a pencil presenting our generation is artistic, then zooming out to present the person drawing.

Shot 24 - 25 will be someone drinking from a Starbucks cup then quick cuts back and forth from a Starbucks cup and a Costa cup to show similarity.

Shot 26 will be a long shot of a group of people and all dressed very similar.

Shot 27 will be a series of images showing hipsters to fill up screen with a collage.

Shot 28 this is where our film opening will tell the audience our film opening is about tattoos as this will be an interview about tattoos and this will be presented in a mid shot and we have chosen tell the audience this late is so enigma is created throughout the film opening.

Shot 29 This is where the title will appear and the title will be surrounded in tattoo related images.

Shot 30 (possibility) We could have a final clip after the title scene but this will be to create enigma and we are not sure what it will include.

Marketing Research

Marketing Research

Our target audience is 16-24 year olds. Therefore our marketing will be based on what influences people of these ages. We believe that most people young people who would be influenced by a tattoo documentary usually use all kinds of social media. Therefore we will advertise our film on the most popular social media sites. Such as:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Tumblr
• Reddit
• Imgur

Another idea for our marketing is to use YouTube, as many teens frequently use YouTube. We could use a trailer of our film as an advert on YouTube to advertise our film. We could also chose to only include the advert on tattoo related videos as the people watching these videos are most likely to watch our film.

We would also create a website for our Documentary as a way of finding us. Our website would include such things as :


Home page - short introduction of the documentary.
Newsletter about the production of the documentary.
Links to our social media
Trailer Tabs
The team portfolio
Diagram Plan of website :::

Email to Tattoo Parlours

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are Year 12 Media students from Great Baddow High School and a part of our coursework is to create a film opening. We are filming a documentary about the rise of a tattoo culture within our generation.

Would it be possible at all for us to visit your parlour at a weekend or a weekday evening to interview you about a variety of subjects surrounding tattoos - the process of preparing the equipment necessary and maybe film someone getting a tattoo.

We would ensure to not interfere with any of the customers in the vicinity. The final production will only be viewed by fellow media students, teachers and the exam board. It would not be used for anything apart from for educational purposes but of course we would be promoting your parlour in a positive manner to our generation, who may be interested in getting tattoos in the near future.

We are excited to get started within the next week and would love to use your parlour as our setting. We wouldn’t be there any longer than 1-2 hours, ensuring we do not interfere with any of your customers and we are more than happy to work around you within the times you provide us.

Looking forward to your reply with any questions or queries.

Yours sincerely,
Ben Griffiths
Mobile (07921 426393)
Email (bengriffiths102@gmail.com)
cc. (hentonmedia@gmail.com)
cc. Mobile (07443 336743)