Task 4
Developing my own Documentary
I have decided to create a documentary about the stereotypes and connotations revolving around skaters and skateboarding, to grow the fanbase, and encourage beginners not to be frightened or intimidated by the better skaters because of the stereotypes. This is the intention for my documentary.
The 'Skater' Aesthetic
There are many stereotypes about what an aesthetic of a skater is, however there are many reoccouring themes in the photographs, videos and art styles within this community. They like very grainy, blurry, vibrant, and almost low quality photographs & videos. Another common theme is a fisheye lens. These are used to give the center of the shot the most attention, to highlight the trick being done. They also tend to take advantage of the 4:3 aspect ratio to capture that 80s and 90s vintage stylisation and cadance. Skateboarding is known to be quite an 'underground' hobbie and lifestyle so I will need to make sure that mood is taken forward within my documentary. I will create a mood board to ensure that I follow these themes and keep my documentary relevant.
My Intention
The outcome that I would like to produce will be a cinematic product with illustrative proactive observationalism and testimony. I am going to plan recordings and setup a camera with a purpose for certain shots. I will also undertake interviews which will express the testimony technique. I would like to try to highlight the observational and expository modes throughout my documentary - however the main mode I intend on using is partisipatory. As the filmmaker, I would like a lot of input in the documentary to make it seem real to me, and to reflect my passion for this subject onto the audience. I will do this by creating little 'vlog' portions to show that the life of a skater isnt as reckless and naive as people think. I want to try and counter what the sterotypes say about the skating community by addressing as many as I can. I also plan to do this by explaining and informing the viewer the true meaning of being a skater. Which to me, is the determination, persistance, and reward that you go through when learning tricks, or even by simply cruising - as skating isnt easy. I want to express the fact that we dont skate to rebel or to break rules, we skate as an escape from the real world, and to give us something to work toward with each day. I intend on finishing my short documentary with a notice towards mental health which is a rising issue in todays society within teenagers. I plan to express that skateboarding is a way of escapism to these strugglers.
Inspiration
Dogtown and Z-Boys
Tony Alva - Pass The Bucket
Rodney Mullen - From the Ground Up
Audience/Customer Profile
Marketing Strategy
LOCKDOWN RESTRICTIONS
To adapt my documentary to the upcoming national lockdown restrictions, I am going to compile footage from other sources to express my thoughts in my film. I will use archival footage instead of original so that I can work from home more efficiently. I plan to make the documentary original and my own by including a voiceover, custom graphic data elements, and some interviews that I can shoot myself. This will express my editing skills, much like the Dogtown documentary as inspiration.
Treatment
Targeting my desired demographic of 12-18 year olds, I will start my documentary with an up-beat grunge instrumental, alongside compiled clips of names such as Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen, and Tony Alva. Starting my film with this will give an authentic and nostalgic feel for the rest of my documentary. By tributing the 'legends' of the skate community and showing familiar faces, my film will aestetically seem more professional and high budget. I aim to keep refering to these familiar faces by finding interviews from the stars where they talk about my desired topic of clearing negative connotations and stereotypes of the skate community.
In Scene 1, I plan to compile footage from Rodney Mullens 'from the ground up' documentary, showcasing his skills ands tricks in the sport. I will take videos of iconic tricks and moments of his career, like the evolution of the ollie and freestyle skating. If possible, I will find an interview where Rodney talks on the matter of stereotypes, and use that as the opening for my documentary. Tony Hawk is another name that I hope to compile footage of. I will include iconic moments of his career like the 900 at the X-Games and also him completing this trick again at age 50. Games are also a huge part in skate culture, so I will showcase the evolution of the 'Tony Hawk' series games, with gameplay from each, showing how the cluture evolves. Finishing the opening scene with a more modern face, I will take clips from the Braille Skateboarding Youtube channel, as well as footage of Aaron Kyro. Braille is a modern skating channel that is a staple in the community. Showing the familiar faces such as Chris, Uzi, Glo, and Ricky will give my documentary a more homely cadence.
In the 6th Scene, I will gather footage from the featured skateboarders Instagram pages that show their skills for the viewers who may not have heard of them before. I have already gathered footage of Alana Smith hitting a little kickflip spine transfer line - Sky Brown ollieing a 7 stair, and a boardslide - and footage of Lacey Barker at the X-Games. Although these videos will be quick cuts and not be on the page for too long, they will serve a great purpose and will make my documentary much more understandable.
In Scene 8, I have found a video from Braille's Youtube channel of Aaron Kyro teaching and skating with the kids at Freemont Skatepark. For this scene, I will remove the audio of the video, and let the voiceover speak on the matter of why kids start to skate. Hopefully by seeing the enjoyment and passion the kids in this clip have, it will transfer a positive message within my documentary.
In the 9th Scene, I plan to compile footage of both myself and professional skateboarders bailing and failing tricks, to showcase that the hobbie isnt easy. But the most important thing is getting back up and carrying on. I will try to edit this scene in a dramatic format with epic music and slowed down video to emphasise getting back up and not giving up.
In the 10th Scene, I will include footage of my failed attempts at a no-comply 180. I filmed these videos before lockdown, and will make sure to include them in my documentary to show progression, and determination. By adding grungy music with edits like a lens flare could make this scene come to life. I will emphasise the voiceover in this scene by removing the audio of the video and lowering the volume of the music.
The 11th Scene will show a tutorial from Braille's Youtube Channel. I am yet to choose the tutorial video yet, however when chosing, I will make sure to find the most in detail tutorial to show how important and useful communities like Braille are. With an inspirational voiceover over the top of this scene, I will accompany that with inspirational music, and an uplifting cadence.
I plan to show footage of Tony Hawk's evolution, progress, and family in the 12th Scene. I have found an interview from Tony Hawk talking about the stereotypes in skating that I am going to download, edit the best bits, and use for my documentary. I will show footage of him skating in his teen years, all the way up to him skating in 2020. I will also gather footage of his family and his children skating while he talks over the top.
The 13th Scene will capture B-Roll footage and cinematics of Littlehampton Skatepark, as well as original footage of myself skating there. I plan to prop the camera on a tripod, capturing a static shot, while I skate around. I have visualised a edit in my head, where I layer multiple videos of myself skating, and mask around my body so that there was multiple versions of myself skating the park at the same time. I think this could be a very modern and cool effect to try to capture and I will play around with it once I have recorded the footage. Again with this scene, I will remove all audio and let the voiceover take effect.
Keeping my documentary modern, I will use Adobe After Effects to create data visualisations, and transitions with a vintage, VHS feel to them. Every portion of video that I take will be edited using levels, vibrance, curves, saturation and stabilation to keep the frame aligned and to conform to the 'skater' aesthetic. I have an idea to create a ripped page transition with an old peice of paper. I will research and incorporate this with my data visualisations. From prior experience from past units and projects, I have learnt that the minimalistic approach is the most effective. I believe that in most cases, less is more. When creating visuals, I will conform to this theory to create a clean, professional style.
By conducting my own interviews, this gives me the chance to get answers of any questions I feel the documentary is missing. As I will be using archived footage for most of my documentary, I will not have a lot of control over what happens during the scenes, or what exactly is said throughout the interviews. However, doing my own interviews will give me this chance and I will take advantage of that. I plan to interview my friend, Oren, who has been skating for a little while now. I will plan out multiple questions for him to naturally answer, keeping authenticity through my documentary.
A potential issue with my documentary would be copyright. As I will be taking other peoples videos and compiling them into my own, I would have to ask permission from each participant. As of their status, it would be very difficult contacting them and getting an answer. Ideally, I would have recorded my own original clips so a problem like this wouldnt be an issue, however with the COVID restritions, this is the only alternative. I will strive to fall under the fair use act, and to reference every source I take from to try and reduce the concequences of the copyright infingement act.
I aim to use the expository mode to provide an effective voice over. I will do this by attempting to speak very calmly and clearly, creating a sense of trust with the audience. With the use of interviews of famous names, this will give an authoritative voice, or a voice or god narration style. The reflexive mode is another mode I will strive for as making sure the voiceover and visuals match is very important to me. Cutting interviews up, splitting audio, and placing in fitting visuals will help me conform to this mode. I will also use the performative mode by refering to the audience directly, and creating an emotional connection with the viewer. I will do this by using metaphors that will relate and connect a non-skater to a skater or the feeling of skating.
Documentary Script
Production Risk Assessment
Programme title: STIGMA
Writer, Producer and Director: Matt Ede
Date: 11/11/2020
Major issues:
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Sprained wrist
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Ankle injury from past incident
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Social Distancing while out in public
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Bad weather so slippy concrete while skating
Solutions:
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Took a few days off from skating and focused on planning/theory work
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Wore an ankle brace and took breaks accordingly
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Wear a mask whenever I cannot be <2m away from pedestrians
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Didn’t skate too fast, and wore shoes with more grip to maintain friction
and some archival footage to help conform to lockdown strictions.
interviews done through online programs such as teams or discord.
Evaluation
At the start of my documentary, I used a grunge instrumental that targets my desired demographic as this type of music is popular within the skating community. To add diversity to the culture, I then also used a LO-FI instrumental as background music, and as the anthem of my documentary. This style of music also has a huge presence when looking at what music skaters listen to. This has given my film a very chilled out, and calm cadence which is perfect and relatable to skating it self. Doing this also helps with the expository mode, by not being aggressive, and creating trust with the audience. I believe these music choices are ideal in targeting my desired audience of 12-18 year olds. Ideally, I would have used music from bands such as Green Day and Nirvana as they would have had a more influencial effect onto my film, however with copyright being an issue, this was my best bet.
The first visual in my documentary is an animated highlight reel of three well known faces in the skate community. I decided to use Rodney Mullen as he is iconic into developing skating, and pushing the boundries. I could have used other names that were alongside him during this process, however Rodney gathers the most amount of traction. Tony Hawk was also featured in my documentary for a similar reason. Even if you dont skate, you know who Tony Hawk is, and this influenced my thought process when deciding what stars would gain my film the most traction. The last person shown in my hightlight reel is Aaron Kyro. He is a more modern face in the scene and is best known for creating Braille Skateboarding which strives to keep skateboarding alive and to get more people to start learning. I thought this message was perfect for the direction of my documentary and had to feature him to subliminally send this message to the audience. Featuring these faces makes my film look a lot more professional, and has given a nostalgic feel when showcasing the old footage. Ideally, I would love to have filmed original footage of these legends skating, so that all the footage was my own, however this simply isnt possible, and the history behind the archival footage is something you cant re-record or re-capture.
In Scene 2 of my documentary, I created an animation which showcased how the shape of a skateboard changed over time. I done this by moving and morphing the shapes with motion blur in After Effects which created a seemless transition and cut. I took inspiration from a tutorial on youtube to create this scene, however if I had more time, I would have used the tutorial in more detail and followed it with every step. [ https://youtu.be/3EGuLX6PsQ4 ] Alternatively, I would like to have made the outline of the shapes thicker and easier to see. As I think it is very easy to miss the change in shape unless you are really focused on the composition.
The 3rd Scene features original footage that I filmed at Littlehampton Skatepark. I think the shot featured at (1:37) is a very visually pleasing angle. However, because this footage was recorded with my iPhone, the colour grading is dull, and the smoothness of the camera movement was lacking. Ideally, I would have taken my DSLR video camera with me to record these shots with, along with a gimble to create B-Roll more smoothly, however with risk of theft and also falling while skating, I did not want to risk breaking my camera. I decided to work with what I had, and tried to alter the colour grading and stabilisation in the post-production process in After Effects. This improved the quality a lot, but it could have been much better with a proper camera, and if I had more time, I would go back and film this shot again.
I decided to take a more cinematic take with my camera work by using B-Roll because I feel as if my younger target audience of skaters would appreciate more visually pleasing shots and camera angles. In skating, filming clips is a huge part of the culture. So getting these interesting camera angles in my documentary is vital to appealing to that culture.
The transition at (1:55) is something I had an idea of for a while, and have tried in other projects like the StonePillow advertisement. This time it was much easier as I used the colour of the sky to create a similarity in the shots and make the editing process easier for myself. The day was relatively clear so this allowed for the creation of the seemless transition. I added a gaussian blur to the blue sky in both of the clips to further sell the transition. Alternatively, I would have liked to film on a much nicer day, where this effect would have been more effective - however in the time frame this wasnt possible. I would also like to add easy-ease to the movement of the camera to make the pans look more natural. This effect definetly developed my skills in transitions, and opens doors into trying many more creative transitions. Adding easy-ease to an already moving video is something I have not done before, and did not get time to research for this project - however will research in my own time in the future.
Because of COVID restrictions, I was not able to conduct an interview with my friends and other skaters. To work around this, I found an archived interview with Tony Hawk that was perfect for the theme of my documentary. However, having original interviews in my documentary would have been very effective, would have conformed to the participatory mode, and is something I would definitely do for next time.
Without COVID restrictions, I would have also have gone to multiple different skateparks around the UK and local area, and recorded uninterupted cinematics of the skaters. This would have conformed to the observational mode that I intended on aiming for. This would have also explained and given a larger insight into the culture, clothing, style, and cadence of the community for viewers that were unaware of these aspects.
When writing my script, I also planned the visuals at the same time. This was to make sure my documentary fell into the illustrative mode, that I was aiming for. I feel as if this mode is one of the most important to enforce understanding to the audience. During the production process, I think that I conformed to this mode quite well by lining up the vocals with my visuals - and this shows in my final product. I also made choices with what was shown on screen depending on the audio. For example, when Tony Hawk talks about his family during his interview, I faded in a photograph of his family and videos of him teaching his daughter to skate. Doing so could give a sense of relatability to the audience and remind them of their familys, and also does enforce proactive observationalism - which I planned on including from the beginning. I done this because I think that it is very important to chose what is on the screen carefully. A documentary or film can be ruined by including the wrong shot or using too many filler clips.
My time managment was definetly tested during this project - especially as I was working from home independantly, without a teacher reminding me to stay on task. I had to plan days out to record clips depending on the weather, and give myself enough time to gather clips, edit, and render. This was a challenge for me as I struggle to stay on task and keep retention - however this documentary developed these skills and will help me in future employment in the media industry.
In conclusion, I have enjoyed this project, as it has allowed me to take many creative avenues while making this film. I have developed and got more comfortable using After Effects, and I intend to keep using youtube tutorials to learn new effects, transtitions, and also to get better at colour grading - which is something I need to work on. This project has motivated me into creating more videos and has reminded me that the media industry is a great place for me to express my creativity through video, film and visual. I would like to create more films similar to this.