Mood Board

Case Study: The Art Of Killing

What is the main genre of this documentary?
The main documentary mode in my opinion is observational. i have come to this conculison due to the fact that there is a lack of communication with the filmmaker and the actors. the main parts of film is where following the 'gangsters'. There are long takes throughout the film, this shows what sort of effect it had on people and how they act with what they have done. the main actors feel they are making a film, however the cameras is always rolling catching every they do in and out of there acting.

 Are there any sub-genres?

Also another genre used throughout this film was performative. They re-enacted events that happened in the past to capture what they had done. The main actor Anwar Congo felt a lot differently from beginning to end. When they were making the re-enactment scenes Anwar changed his view on he had done. He realized all the harm he has caused people and how sick it was. It has took him all his life to realize what he had done. Anwar said he had nightmares but never changed his opinion, however he started to feel differently over the 8 years of filming and going over everything. performative documentary is quiet personal to the people that are involved and telling the story.  Reflexive is also a sub-genre for this documentary; reflexive is where the audience is aware of the techniques  used within the audience. They get confused   it was a representation off the community they live in and how they feel they should be treated in their community.

What relations did Joshua Oppenheimer have with his subject?

Joshua had learnt the native language of the country he was going to film in. This helped him fit in and communicate easily with the Indonesian people and be able to understand their social network.

Being able to speak the native language has made him fit in better made him more respected and easily understood on what he is trying to achieve and find out. Joshua also spent 8 years altogether filming and finishing this documentary. He would of spent a lot of time with people that lived their and experienced what has happened he also spent time with the main 'gangsters' forming friendships and really getting into detail about what had happened and how they felt at the time and present.

How did it help/hinder the documentary?

Joshua First went to this country trying to find out as much as he could about the topic, asking different people for all the facts they knew. However Indonesia was and still is such a close nit community it was very hard for them to let out the information that Josh and his team needed. In the end Joshua realized that he wasn’t going to get the information he needed by asking question to people in the community. They needed to re-think their strategy and find a different way of getting information. He knew that many people in the area liked the idea of being a movie star he used that to his advantage. He spoke to the main ex gangsters ____________ and they agreed to make a film on what they had done, they also asked other people in the community to help re-enact what happened in the past through the knowledge off the Anwar Congo from his first hand experience. This helped Joshua build and form a relationship with the subject.

What was the relationship between the documentary and reality?

 At the beginning of the documentary Anwar Congo wouldn’t show any remorse to what he had done. He was proud to share to the rest of the world what had happened. He gave the impression that what he done was right. Towards the end of the documentary you can see that Anwar Congo was starting to feel differently about what he had done. We first started to see this when he was re-enacting the past. More scene were re-enacted and you could tell he was beginning to see what he had done, and how many lives he had effected. You first see this when he is getting tortured, Herman Koto puts wire round his throat and begging’s to pull, once the scene is over Anwar is a state he can barely moved and feel drained. The main point in the film is when Joshua makes a point of saying while the torture scene is being played back to him is 'you say you feel terrified there but you knew you was only filming you will never be as terrified as the people you tortured as they knew they was going to die. The last scenes in the film is Anwar going back to where he was at the begging of the documentary (the location where he killed many humans) while he was he told us that he killed 'human begins' not 'communists' the then starts to retch showing he has come to terms with what he has done.

How did this documentary represent its ideas?

Throughout the documentary there are many different styles used to give the effect it did. There was observational filming which gave most the main styles to the filming experiencing what they was doing and talking about while not acting. Interviews also took place so you could fully understand what they were talking about and why. There was some primary imagery, which helps the viewer visualize what it may have been like back, then, voice-overs gave effect to the films and also related media.

BUDGET

story boards

soundtrack mindmap

with the songs I have chosen for my animation i have one key concept. i have chosen 4 different song that have 'hero' in the name. we feel Help for Heroes is a very moving and emotional charity, In their advert they show emotional story's but then also the development of them getting better and doing the 'impossible'. we have chosen various different tempos of music ranging from very slow to upbeat and fast. we felt that through the different stages of our animation maybe we would want more than one to set different moods depending on what is happening.

Risk Assessment

Location Recce

Gannt Chart

Filming Permission

Documentary Proposal

For my documentary I have the idea to focus it on the life of a sixth former and what they like about the change from GCSE to A-Level and how it has changed their work ethic. My thoughts were to focus on about three sixth formers and how their life has changed since going up into sixth form.
At Ravens Wood in year 12 girls have the opportunity to join and boys also get the opportunity to join, my thoughts were to find a girl who has joined and a boy who has recently joined Ravens Wood so that you can see the different opinions of what have effected them about joining and how things may have changed. I also want to get a boy who has been at the school since year 7 for their opinion on how things have changed since new people joining and possibly some of their fiends leaving.

Interviews will be included in my documentary as I feel that I should observe the person that I am following as i need to see them in all there different areas but i think also observing them in a lesson to see if they are different to in there friendship group would be interesting as they might act differently, in the interviews I will have a background that shows that it is a learning environment that I am following.

For this documentary to work i need to find somebody with quite a bold distinctive voice to narrate certain parts of the documentary.

The beginning of the documentary will be being introduced to the people involved in the film. There will also be facts about the sixth form and how it works. We will show the students that we are following to make sure that you can see them before you are properly introduced.

As I am doing my documentary on my own I think I will ask somebody to help with the filming in order for me to get the shots that I am actually looking for.

After a few weeks of going over my documentary I have decided that I am going to have two of the boys in my class join my group simply because doing the filming by myself is quite hard so as long as I am in a group I can split the tasks up equally so the job can be done just as well as I want it to be done.

I am using Two boys (Oliver Friend, Tyler Lewis Kilden) and one girl (Jade Mason) this is a good ratio because I feel that in the school this is the ratio of boys to girls, this helps to show the difference between who is in the school, because these three people are from completely different friendship groups this helps to show different aspects of the school. Jade is a girl in the year below so she has a fresh outlook on the sixth form and the school. Tyler and Olly have been at the school since year 7 so they have seen how the school has changed over the years.


To: Ms Moore
From: Olivia Griffiths, Tom Madkins & Kieran McWilliam
Date: 20th April 2015
Subject: Proposal

Proposed Research Topic:
I am proposing my idea of a documentary based on sixth form life, this will show three students and watch how they act around school, they will also answer questions regarding their daily activities and what they find themselves doing on the weekend.


Purpose:
From this documentary we aim to show this to students who are coming into the school so that they can see what the sixth form at RWS is about. We want them to see it from different point of views and see that as long as you work hard you can still go out and have fun.




Background:
The background of this documentary was looking into what the sixth form at RWS is about and we wanted to show prospective students the true meaning of it by having a short documentary taking all the skills and friendships that they make at school and showing that they still are able to enjoy themselves at the same time.



Scope: 
For this documentary we are investing 3months of our time in to it, by firstly researching the best people for the documentary and who would portray the best side of the school. We are then going to film for a few weeks making sure that we have the best footage possible for the documentary. After that we will then take all the footage to production and put it together editing the crutial bits.

Soundtrack MIndmap

Budget

Shooting Script

8. Stop Motion Animation Formats

Clay Animation: This is one of many forms of animation each prop, character and scenery is made of a malleable substance which is usually plasticince clay. clay animation can be very difficult to mater, each frame that is taken will be of the clay character moving, however if it is moved to much or the clay is shaped differently due to it being moved then it wont look as realistic. Clay animator have many different pieces of the body for once character, such as the face, they will have several different heads with different expression on. this makes the filming process quicker due to the fact they will only need to change the head instead of changing one face all the time and getting the shape perfect.

Lego animation: Lego animation is also a very simple type of animation. this can be a very long winded method of animation but if done well it can be very effective, an example of this is the 'Lego movie'. the way Lego animation is filmed is also very similar to clay animation, there are many types of frames taken with characters and scenery moving slightly each time. Lego animators will also have many different faces and body parts to swap around when needed. this will mainly happen when a character speaks.

People and object animation: this type of animation is very hard to make a movie or short film. this method is usually used for adverts. the main character lays on the floor with a camera directly above with in each frame the character and scenery chance. this can have many type of illusions for the viewer. it can act as though the character is falling or driving a car due to the surroundings being moved across the floor.

Paper Animation: Paper animation is one of the cheapest animation. this is for low budget films or TV series. 'south park' was a paper animation. for a paper animation it is similar to others. each character has different arms and legs for the movement of the character, they have different mouths and eyes for speaking and different facial expressions they pull.

Sand Animation: sand animation is also known as sand art. for this type of animation an artist creates a series of characters and scenery using sand. this is doe by applying sand to a surface and then rendering images such as different characters by drawing lines and figures with a hand. To create a sand animation then they producer needs to use either  a overhead projector or lightbox. Animators move around sand on a backlighted or frontlighted piece of glass to create each frame for their animated films.

3. stop motion animation guide

Importing clips:

importing the clips into final cut so you can produce your animation can be a challenge, however you will need the camera that you have filmed on. This camera will have a lead that will go into the side of the camera from there you will need to plug the other end into the back of the apple mac screen. once this is done open final cut on the apple mac, go to the top and click on 'file' then scroll down to 'log and transfer.  highlight each shot ht you want to place ad to final cut drag the footage down from the top left into the bottom left ,where it says 'Drag Media Here'. Once all of the footage that is needed is dragged into this box the top right of that box has a loading bar for each clip. Once all the clips have been  they will be added to your final cut and ready to be edited accordingly 





laying on the timeline:
laying clips onto the timeline can sound confusing, however is very simple part of creating your stop motion animation. You will need to understand how to place different clip onto the timeline and when. as you have now imported all the clips you need to produce your animation you have to place the clips in the right order onto your timeline. this is so when you press play the animation will come together frame by frame. the clips that are available to your will be on the top left box on final cut you need need to establish which is the beginning of your animation. take the clip that will be the beginning and drag it down into the middle column of the bottom box. you will have to drag down each frame separately and place them next to each other starting from left to right. Each frame you will place will have to be touching the frame before. 


Cutting:
Cutting is a very simple but very effective piece of final cut. once you have placed down each frame side by side and hit play you may thing that it runs smoothly but very slow. this is due to each frame being shown for a long period of time. however to shorten this you will find the cutting tool in the tool bar to the bottom right. once you have clicked onto the tool bar you can then use the mouse to hover over the frames that you want to slow down. you will need to click on the frame. if you wanted to half the time that is is shown for you will click half way across the frame if you want the frame shorter click to the left more and then longer you click to the right. The cutting step inst finished yet. you will still be left with the other half of the frame. if you have cut everything down to size then you will have to go back to the tool box and then click on the icon of the mouse. you will need to click each frame you don't want separately and press delete. move each frame next to each other and your cutting stage is over.

Transitions: 
transitions are used when the there is a either a new camera angle of shot frame. you may find that throughout your animation when the camera angle is changed or there is a change in scene then it may not flow as nice as you planned it out to be. Transitions help this out they give an effect that you place in-between clips. to add a transition into your animation you will need to do certain steps. you will need to click between the two clips that you want the transition then once you have clicked you will need to go to the top and click on 'effect' then scroll down and click on transitions. once you have done this many different transitions will appear you can choose the one you want and once you have clicked on one it will appear between your two clips. 

Adding sound Effect and music:






Exporting the document:
To export your final edited animation onto DVD can be very simple. if you go to the top of your page and click on 'file'  then scroll down to 'share'. A box will then appear in the middle of the page you will need to click the far left box and scroll up to DVD. Then change the file name and then render it. which is compiling into a new video. 

       

Characters 

   you can have various different characters within an iStopAnimation. for the animation you could use things like Lego or clay, these can be moved easily and only have small movements making it perfect for iStopAnimation.

    

    I would only use clay or Lego.

   Lego: set up the scenery you want in the backdrop and have were the main characters go clearly visible.

  Clay: mold the clay into the different shapes you want make it as realistic as you possibly can. 

     

Camera Shot/ Movement 

Different camera angles will be used to film an iStopMotion, however, the same camera angle and shit will be repeated a numerous of times, the only thing that will changes is the characters as they are moving. the camera will have to be kept still so the scenery and other parts of the animation stay they same and looks realistic. 

keep the camera still at all times on the main art that is being filmed. take 3 photos of each piece of movement your character does. only move the camera when the scene is finished

Editing 

There will be a lot off editing for an animation to work well, some pictures may have to be cropped out or added in. The editing is a very crucial part off an animation as it puts it all together. many photos will be taken and to be managed by hand is very difficult, iStopMotion allows all the photos to be placed in one section and then looked through and edited. 

Sound
 The sound is also a very crucial to the animation. Animation doesn't have anyone talking throughout the filming, it all has to be added in afterwards, same with noise effect and music. The sound can play a big part withing the animation as it gives it noise giving it more emotion and feeling to it. living it up and not letting it be boring. 

10. mood board

6.Charity Advert Research.

Help For Heroes:

Message from the advert:

•  The first advert i have chosen is a very emotional, the way that this video is getting its message across i feel is different to others I've seen but also working just as well, they show little clips of the soldiers fighting and how they may have got their injury, then it shows different  injured soldiers overcoming the pain, working very hard getting support from the charity and achieving things they may not of achieved on their own. this show the determination of the individuals and then also their emotion once they have achieved this. 

Message of the adverts

•  On this advert is different to my first, this shows how help the heroes started, the facts on what has happened. throughout the 4 minute clip it explains why they started the charity and what it means to them, the charity started off very small and after its first event they inspired many people to donate, it also shows clips of injured soldiers explain how much that this charity is helping them out.  the charity has grown massively and are getting and amazing income of £20-30 thousands a day and giving it to placed that need it most and support the lives of our injured troops. Simon cow also speaks and also inspires more people watching. 

Message from the advert

• In the 3rd advert i have looked at there are some of the clips from the last, however the message they are trying to get across is different, the beginning explains why they have started the charity, but throughout the clip the they explain what they have done how they want people to help, why its good to help, also again they have injured soldiers talking, explaining how the injuries will effect the rest of their lives and how much the charity 'help for heroes' is giving them.

5.lesson plan

Conventions of a news program

The codes and conventions of broadcaster in tv news

what do studio new readers/ presenters do.

-They conduct in depth research, identify and develop news stories of intrest.
- They edit and copy from other reporters or external news agencies.
- Write new bullitiens, links and assist in the production of scropts.
- Research and conduct interveiws with people in the studio or any other location.
- They provide breiefing to crew and contributions.

Personal and proffesinal attributes/skills do news readers need.

-Good interpersonal skills.
-Good communication skills.
-Editorial knowledge.
-Understand legal and ethical issues which affect journalism.

 Presenters apperance communicate to the audience.

-They shoould have a clean shave, neat, conservativehaircut.
-They should also be wearing a suit. this is proffesinal and respectable wear. it al;so comes across very smart. Presenters that arnt dressed or looking appropriate are not trusted as much and people will assume that what they is saying isnt true.

Contribibutions you expect to see on a news programn

-Experts - people will know that they understand what they are talking about.
-Witnesses - showing people it did happen and its not false
- Members of the public - one of us.

Documentaries Genres.

There are many different styles off documentaries. I have chosen to look at six different types.

Participatory Documentary: This is when the film maker gets involved within the actual film. The film maker changes the dynamics of the film with what he says within the interviews. he changes the view on what people say and think. an example that we use for the presentations was a film by Michael moore. In most of his films he likes to contribute and test the people that are involved.

Example: I have chosen to use Living with michael Jackson with Martin Bashir. i have chosen to use this as an example as he is a person that interviews and gets involved with different activites while interviewing, to make it more exciting. He speak over the different activities setting a mood giving a different perspective to what is going on he says about it being 'a different Michael Jackson to what the world normally see'

Poetic Documentary: This is an more artistic type of documentary. it moves away from reality. its  more visual  than others and the music also plays a big part within the documentary. The music sets the mood and then the visual imagery tells the story.

Example: I felt that this is a representation of poetic documentary as over the top of most of the footage there is a subtle song being played over the top. this sets the mood. the music starts slow giving a sense of 'sad' emotion but then it speeds up along with the footage setting a new mood.



Expository Documentary: this type of documentary is more narrative. The narrator speaks directly to the viewers. They may ask rhetorical questions , also the narrator voice has to be a certain tone to draw the viewers in getting their attention. a good example of this is David Attenbrough. his voice is very descriptive. It draws many people in and makes the film more enjoyable to watch.

Example: I have chosen this David Attenbrough documentary as i felt it best fit in expository documentary. he voice is very clear and bold, he speaks to the viewers not t anyone else, he narrates and asks question, but may answer them himself with different facts throughout the documentary



Observational Documentary: The film maker holds the camera in his hands. This is like a pint off view filming. there are no interviews within an observational  there is also no narrator, the filming is just where the film maker goes and what he sees, however in this type of documentary there are different filming styles. e.g. pan shot, extended shot.

Example: I have chosen to use this 'Big joe joyce' as my example of observational documentary as in the  the documentary you can tell that the film maker is holding the camera, the main character is talking to the man and the camera is just filming at the same time.




Performative Documentary: In this type of documentary they reenact differnt scence that happened within the story they are telling. they are dramatized, making it more effective and bigger thanc it actually was. this catches the reader attention making it more interesting. an example of a performative documentary is 'touching the void' based on two men that had a rough experience on a mountain climb. this has re-enacted parts that make the documentary.
Example: Throughout this documentary there are various parts that are acted out to give the full feeling and experience of what the climbers went through, they are professional actors in the same conditions that the real life story would be told, however they are only there for a small amount of time, not As long as the actors where.


Reflective Documentary:The director of the film will cast himself in the film. he will base the story on the film makers own experience. They aid the audience in their understanding. it shows the audience on how the film is made and the complications withing a documentaries with all the different filming re-enactments and interviews. reflective documentaries are normally based on things that have occurred meaning there are all real. an example of this is 'All is mayhem'.


Example: i have chosen this documentary as due to who it is about, is also to producer he explains about how difficult the competition what and what he is up against in the skating competitions.

4.aardman

History: 

Aardman was founded in 1976 as a low-budget project byPeter Lord and David Sproxton, who wanted to realise their dream of producing an animated motion picture. The partnership provided animated sequences for the BBC series for deaf children Vision On creating Morph, a simple clay character. Around the same time Lord and Sproxton made their first foray into adult animation with the shorts Down and Out and Confessions of a Foyer Girl, entries in the BBC'sAnimated Conversations series using real-life conversations as soundtracks. However, these two shorts were not actual Aardman productions. Aardman also created the title sequence for The Great Egg Race.

Later Aardman produced a number of shorts for Channel 4 including the Conversation Pieces series. These five shorts worked in the same area as the Animated Conversationspieces, but were more sophisticated. Lord and Sproxton began hiring more animators at this point; three of the newcomers made their directorial debut at Aardman with the Lip Synchseries. Of the five Lip Synch shorts two were directed by Peter Lord, one by Barry Purves, one by Richard Goleszowski and one by Nick Park.

Aardman Animations, Ltd., also known as Aardman Studios, or simply as Aardman, is an Academy Award-winning British animation studio based in Bristol, United Kingdom. The studio is known for films made using stop-motion clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring Plasticine characters Wallace and Gromit. However, it successfully entered the computer animation market with Flushed Away

Job Roles:

Animator:
An animator has many keys roles they have to set a strong stable set that looks the best it can, they use different materials and equipment to animate, they have to be very skilled and have experience. this is a very skilled job the animators have to be very skilled to be able to set the character up and move them in the most realistic way possible. Clothes are also a major part of characters in an animation, this is when experience helps and makes it as good as possible.  




Story Board Artists:
A story board artists has to be very skilled their main aim is to effectively communicate emotions and feeling through staging, character design, posing and enthusiastic storytelling.  They would need previous experience to help their work be at the highest quality for Aardman. a storyboard artists also can come up with some of the main characters throughout their animations, there drawings will show what they have come up with and what sort of 'personality they are. they need Strong traditional skills such as life drawing, sculpture, painting and photography are also desirable.

A storyboard is one of the main factors within an Istop animation. On a storyboard the artist will draw step by step the animation. each scene will be drawn out on various different story boards unit the whole animation is drawn out. Once they are finished, looking through them will give us a brief ideas of what the story line is and what the main details about the animation.   


CGI Animators:

CGI Animators utilise 2D and 3D digital tools to bring characters and scenes to life. They are artistic in the areas of modelling, lighting and animation. They have traditional animation experience and overlap and follow through, squash and stretch staging and composition and primary and secondary action are also used within Aardman.





The CGI animators use special computers to create special characters that maybe cannot be acted or even be created with make-up. To make a full CGI character takes many different steps. The first is to to get a person in a green suit with sensors on the main joints of the body. Taken the information of the moving person the main joint areas help the CGI animator  create the character, then using the outline you can create the the shape and design of the character that is being created. Once the basic outline and shape has been designed then the more detailed features can come into place giving the character more definition. 





Characters/Props/ Sets
Throughout the Aardman productions they have made many animations, there most famous movies are Wallace and Gromit and Chicken run. They have produced other more than one movies and have had to overcome many animations problems throughout the making of the characters. for the making of the cure of the wear rabbit, they was inspired by other film genres but the wear rabbit was chosen as they wanted it to be 'funny' make the audience laugh but also be dramatic and that's why they made it a wear rabbit that can be intimidating and scary. however having a loving side and be friendly and not as scary as everyone thinks. the characters are well thought out and each individual character has its own personality and a lot off meaning behind it. 

At the Aardman studio there is a room called the rigging room, this is where they fix the puppet, props, scenery and set, there job is to make these good as new and not see where the the set is when it moves during the filming. Also there is a set dressing workshop, this is where vegetables in the film are made.many of the workers have only made vegetables they are professional and have a lot of experience creating the best and most realistic vegetables. Every last little bit of detail goes into thee scenery of the making, the photos that are on the wall in wallace and gromits house are expertly designed and are very detailed. in the art department in the Aardman studies the people that work their job is to design the overall look, everything from landscape to colours, interiors and exteriors, the designs they come up with are very professional and stunning. one artist called paul is responsible for all the painted background you see withing the film in the production floor, this is where the film is produced, its a very challenging room but many experienced workers. in the animator room there are 2 animator assistant animator, they are assigned to  a key animator, the assistant animator are responsible for prepping the key animators puppet ready for the next shot. the whole film is put together in the editing room. voices sound effect and the music. They use new technology and also old. all the background characters have been made numerous off times and are all stored in one room to keep fresh and tidy. there are up to 60 people working on characters, responsible for certain things such as painting, sculpting, foams and latex and various other things.  


Filming and camera techniques: 
Shoot everything on film at the moment. The 35mm film cameras they mainly use "Mitchells" and have, in most cases, been considerably adapted to our purposes. For example, they have video assist cameras which look through the lenses on our film cameras so the animators can see the picture that will be recorded on each frame of film.

The other camera that they still sometimes use which is more affordable is the 16mm Bolex. Failing that, you’d have to be thinking about super 8mm. Peter Lord’s book ‘Cracking Animation’ goes into these issues more thoroughly.



Bibliography: 
http://www.telepathy.co.uk/aardman/culture/faqs.html
http://www.edenproject.com/blog/index.php/2013/02/how-to-animate-stop-motion-tips-from-aardman/
http://www.aardman.com