Documentary

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Documentary

• How to Write a Script Part 3 - Script Elements
  Visual and Sound

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Script Elements

• Story
• Visuals
• Sound

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• The eye of the camera makes reality manageable
  for the learner. The lens can be a time-machine
  or a telescope a magnet or a microscope.
• Erikson, Carlton and Curl, David (1972).
  Fundamentals of teaching with Audiovisual
  Technology. Second Edition. The Macmillan
  Company. USA. Chapters 1 and 5

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• Only through visual media may we see what happens
  to a drivers body when his car is in collision
  or observe the internal workings of a jet
  aircraft engine. P21
• Erikson, Carlton and Curl, David (1972).
  Fundamentals of teaching with Audiovisual
  Technology. Second Edition. The Macmillan
  Company. USA. Chapters 1 and 5

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VISUAL ELEMENTS
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Visual Elements

• The Shot
• The shot is a single take on a image.

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Visual Elements
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Visual Elements

• The Shot
• What the image contains is most important -
  something needs to be happening.

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Visual Elements

• The Shot
• Action, Action, Action! But not random action. It
  must have meaning.

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Visual Elements

• The Shot
• Action, Action, Action! Sometimes the action is
  through the camera angles, cuts, transitions, etc.

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Visual Elements

• The Sequence
• The sequence is a collection of shots put
  together to tell a story.

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Visual Elements

• The Sequence
• 2 categories
• 1. Continuity Sequence - continuing action that
  ends in a break in time.

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Visual Elements

• The Sequence
• 2. Compilation Sequence - often called a
  newsreel sequence. The shots are tied together
  by subject, not time.

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Visual Elements

• Every cut is a lie. Its never that way. Those
  two shots were never next to each other in time
  that way. But youre telling a lie in order to
  tell the truth. --Wolf Koenig

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Visual Elements

• The Sequence
• Documentary sequences, for the most part, are
  observational.

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Visual Elements

• The Documentary Sequence
• If the film did not record the event, it would
  still take place.

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Visual Elements

• The Documentary Sequence
• Sometimes sequences are organized IE a
  filmmaker might organize activists to have a
  rally and film it. The rally is real, so it is
  authentic.

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Visual Elements

• Other Visual Elements
• The Montage - combining a number of small shots
  and weaving them together.
• Odessa stairs scene from Potemkin was first
  montage.

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Visual Elements

• Other Visual Elements
• Talking Heads - includes interviews or people
  talking directly to the audience on camera. Often
  experts, people involved in the subject in some
  form.

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Visual Elements

• Other Visual Elements
• Colors, textures lines - color can be used as
  symbolism grainy film represents the past a
  man walking through lines of columns might appear
  powerful, while lying down might be submissive or
  passive.

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Visual Elements

• Other Visual Elements
• Archival film footage or photographs. Use of
  stock news footage or photographs, inserts parts
  of TV shows or other films

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Visual Elements

• Other Visual Elements
• Re-enactment - actors re-enact a scene from real
  life.

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Visual Elements

• Other Visual Elements
• Graphics - Title pages to announce new scenes or
  ideas, titles that animate onto image

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• Watch how this short film, Fear Factor, informs
  the audience while remaining interesting through
  use of story, visuals, and sound.

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• The process of creating the soundtrack for the
  visuals of a film. Since silent films began to
  talk, filmmakers have been looking to improve the
  post production of their film. It has become a
  whole new creative world as people like George
  Lucas proclaim that "It is 50 of a film.
• "Sound Design, Sound Designer, Sound design, Post
  Production, Audio Design." WILDsound Filmmaking
  Feedback Events, Film festivals, watch movies,
  movie review. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Jan. 2010.
  lthttp//www.wildsound-filmmaking-feedback-events.c
  om/sound-design.htmlgt.

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Sound Elements

• Adding sound to movies would be like putting
  lipstick on the Venus de Milo. - Mary Pickford,
  silent film star

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Sound Elements

• Sound is as important as the image.

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Sound Elements

• Sound can be manipulated effectively to enhance a
  film.

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Sound Elements

• Sound, sometimes, can be far more effective than
  image.

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Sound Elements

• Christian Metz identified 5 channels of
  information in film, 3 of which are auditory
• Visual image
• Print other graphics
• Speech
• Music
• Noise

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Sound Elements

• Six types of sound in film
• Narrative commentary / Voice over
• Talking heads
• Music
• Ambiance sound
• Sound effects
• Silence

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Sound Elements

• Narrative commentary / Voice over
• Soundtrack commentary that sometimes accompanies
  a visual

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Sound Elements

• Narrative commentary / Voice over
• Can be spoken by one or more off-screen
  commentators (voice over the image)

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Sound Elements

• Narrative commentary / Voice over
• Easy and effective way to communicate information
  in a documentary in absence of dialogue between 2
  actors

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Sound Elements

• Narrative commentary / Voice over
• Not the same as talking heads!

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Sound Elements

• Talking Heads
• Interviews replace narration
• Comes across as more credible
• Keeps that non-fiction feel

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Sound Elements

• Talking Heads
• Audience can identify who is talking
• Filmmaker can cut to visual images while talking
  head continues talking
• Audience knows the voice and has more empathy

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Sound Elements

• Music
• Feature films rely heavily on soundtracks -
  audiences identify with a soundtrack

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Sound Elements

• Music
• Can enhance moments, create moods, and create
  cultural flavor.
• Appeals on an emotional level, creates empathy
  with event on the screen.

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Sound Elements

• Music
• Establishes a particular geographical location -
  think images of rice field with Indian folk music
  location is India.

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Sound Elements

• Ambiance - Ambient Sound
• Naturally present in atmosphere surrounding
  visual
• Recorded simultaneously with the visual

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Sound Elements

• Ambiance Ambient Sound
• Traditionally was called noise
• Essential to creation of a location atmosphere
• Gives visual reality and realization of space and
  time

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Sound Elements

• Ambiance -Ambient Sound
• Normally used continuously throughout documentary

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Sound Elements

• Sound Effects
• Any sound that is not speech, music, or ambiance
  that is artificially injected into the soundtrack
• Can be a natural sound digitally created or
  distorted (bird chirping)

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Sound Elements

• Sound Effects
• Used to enhance subject or mood where ambiance
  sounds would be at odds with visuals
• IE horses galloping, swords clashing to simulate
  battle in history while visual shows battlefield
  today
• Helicopter sound when actual helicopter was too
  far away to record sound
• Remember the sound of horses hooves
  clip-clopping at the beginning of The Devils
  Playground?

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Sound Elements

• Silence
• In the world of film, where everything is
  deliberate, silence means the filmmaker has
  chosen to put it there.
• Lack of sound forces the audience to focus on the
  visual
• Can be used to make audience hone in on a visual
  to the extent that it takes them to suspended or
  unnatural reality
• Use this effect VERY sparingly, if at all.