Our Documentary-brief overview of roles

Editing  Decisions:

Myself and Joe took on the role as editor. As it was heavily interview based we included a range of stills and created a couple of montage style moments as well as general cutaways to give the viewer a break from the talking.

We didn't want it to be as simple as having one solid block of interview shown for a long duration of time, on a specific question, so we decided to mix our interviewee's answers and block them together in terms of subject rather than the order of the people talking. We also wanted to hide the documentary makers presence by not including our director (Emma) asking the questions, and instead having the interviewee frame the question within their answer.

Most of the way through we used the music/soundtrack to fit around our footage clips, however during the montages we tried to edit them in sync with the beat of the Beatles music.

Camera Decisions:


Maz was our camera person, filming mainly with the aid of a tripod, but also handheld in some parts. She included many pans, location shooting, long takes, etc to conform to the conventions of typical documentaries

Sound Decisions:


Our sound person (Olivia) recorded the majority of our sound separately, mainly using a boom. We also got Joe's friend to perform their version of Beatles songs which we used as a soundtrack in some parts. We had some difficulty in lip syncing during the edit, this could have been prevented by making a distinct clap sound on both the camera and for recording the sound, this would then have enabled us to accurately match up the sound with the footage easier/quicker.

Producer/Director Decisions


Hannah our producer enabled everything ran smoothly on the day, and arranged the interviews in the Cavern Club.

Emma, our director had a very clear plan of what kind of structure she would like our documentary to follow, guiding us all throughout. She translated all the interviews into a script, and from this we were able to get a clearer structure.

'let it be' documentary-editing part 2

• • to add authenticity and provide further information we included many stills which the viewer may be unable to obtain themselves
    
    
    • we didnt want the pace of the edit to be too snappy/fast as generally documentaries of this type don't appear to race through information, we allowed it to have enough time on screen to sink into the audiences mind
    • we.
      
      
      during editing of the sound we cut out any unnecessary pauses between the interviewees answers, for example there were many 'umms' and 'errms' that werent necessary as we wanted them to seem as though they know what they were talking about 
      
      
      • when cutting the some of the pans we cut them in once they'd already started moving as we found this made the film look as if it flowed more from scene to scene, 

        it allows the motion to continue
      • and didnt let the audiences eye rest on the set/scene for too long

'Let it be' doc-mise-en-scene

the mise en scene was very important within our film as sertain streets, for example Matthew Street are associated with the Beatles as its where they use to perform. So it was important for us to revisit these locations to film in. We also included many props, for example the gift shop merchandise, this showed how the Beatles are still influenceing todays modern world


Realism:
to encode realism within our documentary, we interviewed real people (not actors) that had been experts within the field for many years, we also stuck with naturalistic lighting and avoided artificial sound (foley) 

'Let it be' documentary-Sound

we wanted to include non diegetic as well as diegetic sound in our project-got joes friend to record his acoustic versions of Beatles songs. using this as a soundtrack allowed us to bridge the gaps inbetween scenes, producing a more flowing film, as well as this its also very relevant to the topic

Documentary Editing

http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/documentary-editing-tips/

This link initially help me think about which road we wanted our documentary to go down...and how this can be accomplished in the edit.


We decided against having a narrator voiceover, and instead had interview sound bites, combined with cutaways to relevant images/footage, to tell the story.

Our aim has been to create a positive outlook on liverpool itself as well as the impact of the beatles

Some parts consist entirely as the interview used as a voiceover, combined with other footage  of beatles/liverpool related things...this was due to the fact watching an entire interview with one person for a long duration of time can get very dull, no matter how interesting the story.

Beatles Existing Documentary Short Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhGLYgdDIMU

zooms out on black and white pictures of the Beatles

interview voiceover kicks in whilst still showing these pictures

picture of each of their faces cut to exact same position from picture to picture (so the eyes are in the same place), almost as if the face is simply changing

Simple 'the Beatles' writing zooms out from bottom of the screen so its readable

it didn't matter that the interview voiceover switched people as this was obvious due to the distinct difference in voices

music loud over pictures but fades quieter (or at times it stops completely) when the voiceover kicks in, then straight after the section of voiceover finishes, a new song kicks in, no pause in-between.

pictures cut to the beat of the song

Documentary Conventions

http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_13/section_5/artc1A.html

Beatles Research

http://www.liverpoolcityportal.co.uk/beatles/beatles_influences.html

^ this link allowed me to find out more about who the Beatles have influenced the most, and what other bands have been inspired by them. It also broadened my knowledge on the Beatles themselves and what inspired the themes within their music.

Synopsis of our documentary

One of the most iconic thing associated with Liverpool are the Beatles, it's something most people think of as soon as they think of Liverpool. They have had such a massive impact on the city, this is why we chose this for our topic, to learn how much of an influence they've had exactly on Liverpool. Before going to Liverpool we did our research on the city itself, to have a better idea of where interesting locations to film would be, such as Matthew Street and inside the Cavern Club. We also looked in depth into the Beatles, and I found the following link useful with this research:

http://www.beatlesstory.com/the-beatles/beatles-liverpool.html