UKC

A couple of lads at work are doing some fund raising and in-house awareness of mental health issues of ending sigma in the workplace for those that work in the emergency services.

I got all giddy today, and said tha I woiuld do a 3 minute and 15 minue documenary for the website of their trials and tribulations. There is only one problem, I've never made a documentary. I now don't want to appear a cock and not produce the goods, so to speak.

I'd like to do as professional a job as I can with no experience, funds or what ever else is required to do the job.

I would very much appreciae any help or advice on planning, preparing and editing a documentary.

Also where is a good place to get royalty free music?

Please excuse the typos, as I'm drafting this on my tablet which does not have a dictionary to hide my spelling mistaches.

In reply to The Lemming:

Will be difficult or impossible to do without any budget, but it *can* be done modestly. Your main hard expenses will be a camera and editing software.

Rule numero 1 is that story is king - in this case it will be getting the guys to sit down and tell their story. Sit them down for an interview. A regular screw up at this point is for folk not to give the sound as much attention as it's due. Try as best as you can not to have them sound like they are in an echoy bathroom. Get a room where you can get silence and a nice sound. Make sure they are lit well and the composition is nice. Ask them relevant questions and get them to answer.

Get accompanying shots of them in the environment in question - get shots of that environment too. In TV-land these shots are called GV's - "general views". They help enormously when it comes to the edit.

Editing - unless you can find something for free, get Sony Vegas. Last time I looked it seemed to be the cheapest on the market. I picked up a copy for £20, while ago now though.

In the editing software, get your story lined up, chop up all the bits of them speaking until it creates a coherent story. Then use the 'GVs' to cover over the breaks in the cut, using shots that help show what it is they are talking about. And music also fits into there,too. I got some royalty-free music with Vegas, again not sure if they do that now.

To get the full professional look, you can get into the colour balancing, the sound mixing, creating nice graphics in Photoshop... making even a short film becomes a melting pot of perhaps 6 or 7 different jobs, so you have to be able to do them all to a degree otherwise people can see something is missing.

Best of luck

In reply to kwoods:

I think I have the basics. Small camcorder, couple of actioncams, a Rode videomic and adobe premier elements.

I'm quite looking forward to the challenge.

Cheers

In reply to The Lemming:

Speak slowly and make each shot, of anything, longer than you think it needs to be. Nothing worse than watching video clips which flit around at light speed from shot to shot.

In reply to The Lemming:
I make radio docs rather than TV, but there are a lot of similarities. Kevin has covered all the basics pretty well. For just over three minutes you'll need to keep the story pretty tight and simple - but make sure there is some sort of structure and arc to it. Get some action as well as sit down interviews. Plan out your story dream scenario (what will they say? what will happen?) and work from there.

Please, please make the audio good.

I use Free Music Archive all the time - there's some good stuff on there if you search around a bit.
http://freemusicarchive.org/

Good luck!

In reply to chris_s:

As far as audio goes, I have Rode steriomic pro. Would it be a good idea to invest in a shotgun mic as well?

In reply to The Lemming:

You might be better off with a personal, or lavalier, mic for the sit down interviews and use your Rode mic for capturing the action and ambient sound for GVs, though happy to be corrected by a video specialist.

Good ones are expensive, but you can hire them.

Or get one of these and record the sound on your smartphone: http://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Rode-SmartLavand-Lavalier-Micr...

In reply to The Lemming:
Sounds like a challenge, and it's good that you have some advice on here, but just wondering what kind if timescale you have ?

In reply to chris_s:

Out of curiosity, if I captured sound on my phone, rather than my camcorder/GoPro, how would I sync the audio to the video so that it would not look like a seventies martial arts film gone wrong?

In reply to Jim C:


My mates are after a rough and ready 3 min film as and when. However they have something in the pipeline with a target date of September.

Gives me time to learn, learn and learn some more.

In reply to The Lemming:

When you are conducting the interviews make sure that the questions aren't tedious and banal, otherwise the doc might end up like one of your threads in here!

In reply to The Lemming:

switch all the recording stuff on, "quiet please" then have someone (in shot ideally) clap their hands in view of the cameras, wait a second then start the questions. you can use the clap in place of a movie clapper board to sync everything up... it helps greatly though, if all the cameras are recording the same format / fps (or a multiple of) ie you can mix 25 and 50 fps together but if you add 24 or 30fps into the mix it can cause a lot of weirdness when you render out.
at the start and end of each shot "hold" the view for a 1 to 5 seconds to make sure you have the start and end of the shot all recorded.
haven't recorded a documentary type film but have done a little multi angle stuff. oh yes, and once you've got all the tracks synced up, switch the audio off on all but the one recording the voices if you can. unless you "need" the audio to come from different angles.

(please note, I'm not a professional or anything like it, but the above suggestions come from my own silly mistakes )

In reply to rallymania:

That's a great idea.

Cheers.

In reply to The Lemming:

As Kevin Woods said, the story is the boss. So who decides on this: you, or someone else? What is that story going to be? What is the arc of the narrative, what is the beginning, the middle, the end? Do you want the 3-minute and 15-minute pieces to tell the same story or different ones?

All difficult questions and trying to answer them on your own would be taxing; so I'd draw in one or both of the lads doing the fund raising to bounce a few ideas around and get an idea of what that story/those stories might be before you start work. What mental health issues are they raising awareness of, what effect can these have, how do colleagues know when someone is suffering and what can they do about it? (There's an interesting bit about Graeme Fowler in The Guardian today http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/may/02/graeme-fowler-england-cri... about related issues, read paras 7-10 if the whole thing is too much).

Then decide what story you want to tell and always keep in mind the question 'so what?', as answering this will keep your story on track.

Good luck. It's a big thing you've landed yourself with.

T.

In reply to The Lemming:

There's piles of great resources online for this sort of thing.

http://nofilmschool.com/

To get you started.

There's a ton of great stuff being put out on YouTube. Important thing is put out the story rather than edit in lots of trikcsy shots to show what a great filmmaker you are. Wouldn't it be easier to shoot the fifteen minute film and then edit that down into a teaser?

Good subject btw. I'd be interested in the results of your efforts.

D

In reply to The Lemming:

Thank you everybody for your help and advice.

I'll post my results onto youtube when done and dusted.

Cheers

In reply to The Lemming:



[Caveat: have never produced a documentary, so feel free to treat this post as a load of balls if you like! But...]


I always feel that with any kind of communication, managing expectations is extremely important. For instance, if we're watching a big budget Hollywood jobbie, understandably we expect (and generally get) technical perfection, even if the plot's ridiculous. Conversely, if we're watching a little vid of Sid and his mates pissing around on the crag, we (well, most of us!) don't have the same expectations of technical perfection.

If it was me (and it's not!) I'd open with the camera panning across an establishing shot, some sombre music playing and a brief voiceover, along the lines of, "We'd love to give you a wonderful, professional film... but we're not professional film-makers. We're a bunch of people who work in the emergency services. We'd like to tell you a little story about something we think may be pretty important."

So if (despite your best efforts!) it's a little rough and ready, well the audience is no longer focused upon technical perfection. You've flagged up that it's the story which matters. And if mention of the emergency services doesn't (rightly) elicit a load of sympathy, I'll eat my proverbial hat.

Good luck!

Mick

In reply to Mick Ward:




As for the audience, its in-house and won't be aimed at the general public.

For Joe Public, they have 999 to call upon when the proverbial hits the fan, but for those that rock-up to help Joe Public they don't have anybody to call upon. And this is where some of the lads at work have offered to help promote "Blue Lights infoline". I'm jumping onto their coat-tales for the ride by offering to do some armature movies and if I'm honest, I sort of blanked out the whole thing until recently because that was the ill perceived done thing. Sticking your head in the sand bites you in the bum eventually.

In reply to The Lemming:

Now you're getting into areas that us radio folk never have to worry about, but I think rallymania has answered the question

In reply to The Lemming:


Ah, didn't realise that. But even more reason for them to realise you're not a professional film-maker. The bottom line is that to get good at anything - writing, bolting, currency trading (I speak from bitter experience of all three!) takes thousands of hours. You haven't got that; so don't put yourself under undue pressure. Just do your best.



Wow! From a technical point of view, these words are pure f*cking gold. (From a human point of view, they're almost unbearably poignant.) Sorry to sound like a Sun sub-editor (they are the most skilled in the business), but it's really 'Who Helps the Helpers?' (And the answer to that usually is - no-one!) ('Cos we didn't think of that.)

Just keep it simple. There's any amount of folk on here who can - and will - give you technical help. But just keep it simple. The helpers need access to help.

mick

In reply to chris_s:


Still at the research and development phase and I have a feeling that I have to focus on one technical aspect above all else. And that is good audio.

I realise and understand that I am a punter but I want as good audio as I can get on a budget. I like my Rode stereo videomic Pro but I can't help notice an awful lot of static. There may be good reasons for this, in that I don't have a fekin clue how to get the best out of the kit.

My camcorder allows me to manually adjust the Audio Recording Levels while the Rode mic has three settings of -10Db, 0Db and +20Db and a High Pass 75Hz filter to get rid of low level noise.

Try as I may, I don't have a scooby on how to best add these combinations. While wearing my headphones do I put the mic into the highest setting of +20Db and reduce the Audio Levels on my camcorder?
Or do I use a different combination?

What ever I do, I can hear a buzzing during quiet moments.

One thing that I have learnt is that it may be best to invest in a way to record away from the camera and up close and personal with the Talking Head. Would it be best to get a Lav mic and audio recorder and sync up later?

Mr Google has mentioned both a Zoom H1 and Zoom H2. Are these a good budget option for capturing audio with a mic?

If not I'm open to suggestions.



Questions, questions, questions. I just don't want to look or sound like a tit.

In reply to The Lemming:

Hopeful bump

I start filming my first attempt this afternoon and I'm hoping for some last minute tips.

Cheers

In reply to The Lemming:

Sorry - I missed this post initially.

I don't know enough about that Rode mic to advise on how to get the best out of it - you'll just have to experiment with what sounds best.

But I prefer not to use hard settings on mics that boost or alter the sound and will fix issues that need high pass filters, etc in post.

How good are your headphones? They maybe adding some noise that actually isn't there on the recording. I use Sony MDR 7506 headphones - these are the broadcasting industry standard and reproduce sound very accurately. But I don't want to add your shopping list. They're not essential. It's good that you're monitoring the audio though

You will always get better sound with a dedicated audio recorder and decent mic. Zooms are fine. I recently wrote a giant email to a friend who was asking very similar questions - PM me if you want me to forward you a copy.

In reply to chris_s:

Sir, you have mail.

In reply to The Lemming:

Don't wear stripes, herringbone, small intricate designs or flashy jewelry.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:


Good call.

Cheers