The opportunity to work within a group while collaborating with an external client and getting guidance from a professional documentarian has been beneficial to me. Working within a team I developed a greater understanding in knowing how a team can work together to get the best outcome. Knowing how each member’s skills, strengths and capabilities can be used in dynamic ways. Understanding my capabilities and my group’s capabilities was crucial in determining how we were to approach the short documentary project. Effective communication was going to determine how efficient we work as a team. I felt I benefitted by fulfilling my obligations to the group and having a desire to learn from the process. I had some prior experience and skills in production and I tried to apply it while also looking to improve.

Working in a group it is important for people to step up because the possibilities will increase dramatically. Not everyone in the group had the desire to step up and go beyond the basics, but those who did really benefitted. Camilla was proactive with thoughts, ideas and execution. She was a good communicator, driven and team oriented. She got the group going by putting together our preparation documents that had us organised early. I worked well with her during the production and editing process. While I did much of the filming, she would arrange our interviews and provide direction as well identify ways to improve edit.

I was most frustrated, when it was left to me to bring all the equipment we were going to use from the loan office to QVM due to my team arriving late. I feel I should have left behind some of the equipment that wasn’t crucial.

Because the American Doughnut Kitchen is a family business established and serving doughnuts since the 1950s, our focus was to tell a generational story, but also focus on what it’s all about…the doughnuts. Food porn is what we were after. There were multiple stages in the making of the doughnuts and this provided some very appropriate visuals. 

A challenging part of the production process was forming a relationship with our interviewees. Due to the availability of the interviewees, we didn’t get the opportunity to meet with them prior to the interview. Unfortunately this meant we weren’t able to  form a level of trust and get knowledge on their personalities. Had we understood them better, we could have adjusted the way we interviewed them. We weren’t fully prepared in this aspect. It was, however, a lesson in dealing with people, especially on a business/corporate level. I now feel more comfortable dealing with a client on a corporate level. I can take aspects of what we did and didn’t do.

What was a major benefit for us was editing with the other groups in the edit suites. I learned a lot about editing throughout this process. It felt like a professional environment and we would get helpful feedback from our tutor, Rohan. After we come back to the editing suites after filming, he was able to tell us what worked and didn’t work. We also got feedback from professional editor, Cindy, which helped us fine tune our film.

From the first few weeks of the studio, when we met in the class room, the exercises we did seemed very practical. This made me really think what was needed and what to look out for when planning a documentary. From observing environments to people and listening. Practising these exercises can only improve future productions. I am by no means comfortable interviewing people, but learning the techniques in how to approach the task made me more comfortable during the interview process.

Looking to apply the editing techniques of Rohan, our group made an effort to use post it notes to organise our footage. I don’t feel like we used this to it’s full affect as we resulted in looking through the footage we were after.

In the treatment stage, we had goals to have our documentary be 5-6 minutes long, but as we reviewed our footage, there wasn’t enough to keep the story engaging. We had originally set out to do a story based around legacy, but since we didn’t get enough from the interview to tell that story, we had to re-structure it. Based on the footage we had, Rohan suggested we structure it with: 1. Introduction 2. History 3. Challenges 4. Customers. This helped a lot as it allowed us to focus on this structure and refine it from there.

I am very satisfied with what our group was able to achieve. Belinda and Karl are keen to see what we have come up with, I think they will love it and most likely share it on their media platforms. I have gained valuable knowledge and experience that will be beneficial in a professional environment. I am sure this experience will help me in my future endeavours. I will include the video as part of my portfolio.

It was extremely beneficial to our final project to get feedback from professional editor, Cindy. We made most of the changes she suggested. Specifically she identified our rough cut made our film feel corporate and identified ways in which to correct it. We re-arranged parts of the interview, and brought forward a story about how a customer described the doughnuts. This would replace dialogue that sounded too much like a promotion. The change worked very well and feels less corporate.

The feedback was also a valuable insight into the possibilities of what can be done to improve an edit.

Now in the final stages of our edit, our focus was now on fine tuning our short doco. This included colour grading, shortening footage to create a better flow and cleaning up sound.

While the visuals were all in a good place, our major issue was sound. As Rohan noted, audio from the interview clearly breaks in and out. This disrupted the flow and will potentially affect the overall quality. Rohan’s explanation went something like…If the audience notices edits in sound, it may cause them to have doubts about the accuracy of the information.

A technique to correct sudden dropping in and out of sound is to ease in sound. At the end of the break, ease it out. Also use non-speaking portions from audio, layer it beneath interview audio and identically match ease out keyframe points with non-speaking audio’s ease in keyframe points.

This is used to fill gaps in dialogue and hide breaks.

Example:

We filmed extra footage on this day. All of us were up and at the market by 6am to get the dough preparation shots as well as ambiance for audio. Apart from the additional food porn, we also arranged for Belinda and Karl to come back to the van later in the day for additional cutaways as well as re do the interviews. Additionally we got footage of a customer talking about how her friend recommended her to visit the market specifically to try the doughnuts. This was filmed on an iPhone.

While we added the cutaway visuals to support the interviews footage from our rough cut, the major dilemma we faced was that because it is now week 6 and our fine cut is due at the end of the week, it is too late to make drastic changes to the structure of the edit. This was stressed to us by Rohan. Of course this meant that we had to leave out the 2nd interview we did at the van.

This was certainly the right option as we can now focus on fine tuning the edit.

Documentaries watched in the last 5 weeks:

1. Chef’s Table (Netflix)
2. White Helmets (Netflix)
3. Extremis (Netflix)
4. Gasland (Netflix)
5. Cameraperson

Documentaries to watch in the next 5 weeks:

1. 13th (Netflix)

In our rough cut edit, we added blank segments with captions of what we intend to add into it (i.e. people eating doughnuts or early morning dough preparation). These are sections we have identified that could benefit the story with extra footage or images. We have planned another day of shooting for extra footage and this is what we have identified to get:

Footage

1. Intimate a close up shots of Belinda and Karl
2. Customers eating donuts. Smiling. Close ups.
3. Shot of photos (customers/archive)
4. Shot in front of van to replace slider shot
5. Belinda scrolling through instagram

Archive photos

1. Extra photo of Karl and Dave
2. Family photos
3. Famous customers

Interview (inside van after hours? For clean background/less noise)

1. Elaborate on topics I.e. Challenges, factory, family, history, affect on family relationship, etc

Now that we had filmed our interviews, it was time to review what we had and come up with a structure for the doco.

Given that we filmed our interview on week 4, we were a week behind compared to the other groups who already did most of their filming the previous week. Rough cut is coming up at the end of week 5. We needed to get organised fast.

Part of the criticism we got from Rohan was that the interviews were poorly compositioned…

• Eyeline was angled too far away from the camera. Interviewee should have been positioned closer to camera to get a better angle
• Close up as opposed to a mid shot would have engaged viewer to interview more
• Shot wasn’t locked off resulting in more of a field reporter look
• Interviewing two people at once would cause post production issues and limit flexibility in editing. Example: Belinda would often interrupt Karl and disrupt sentences.

These mistakes have restricted how the story can be told, but we must know figure out how we can make it work.

The way we captured the process of making doughnuts with the ADK staff was well received.

Tuesday 24th January

Day 2 began somewhat rocky from my perspective. The previous night we agreed to meet at RMIT at 9am. Belinda and Karl were going to be at Vic Market at 10:30am, but we still had to pick up all the gear we needed to use. I got to the loan office at 9:20 but my other two group members reported in saying they will be late and arrive at 10am and 10:20am. Not wanting to delay our schedule, I opted to carry all the equipment from RMIT to Vic Market myself. I was carrying three different cameras, three lenses, boom mic and recorder, two tripods and a slider.

I regret doing this. Not only could it be bad for my body physically, but it contributed to the lack of teamwork that morning. Even though we would have been late, it would have been better if we were late as a team and we all carried the equipment there as a team. Share that responsibility. And a lesson that could have been taken from that is that you can’t rely on one person picking up the slack and letting you off the hook. Will their attitude change the next time? Not much. But what if they go into the next assignment knowing that the team can’t move forward if individually they’re not moving forward or aren’t there on time? That would be a lesson in teamwork.

Anyway, with the actual filming… after seeing the footage that we got, I feel there were things we could have done differently or opportunities we missed. As Rohan said, interview shots should have included a close up locked off shot of Belinda and Karl. The sony camera could have been used as the close up camera, while the DSLR could have been the mid shot. Also while we got lots of footage of the donut process, we didn’t get as many cutaway shots of Karl and Belinda. A perfect opportunity that slipped my mind was when Belinda and Karl said they were going to go for a walk around the market. We should have had a camera follow them. That would have been perfect.

So the next step is to start indexing the footage that we have and piece it together and get more cutaway footage of the family if the opportunity arises.

Chef’s Kitchen is a short run series on Netflix. There are 6 films, with each film an in depth look into how a chef’s personal experiences and unique approach to the kitchen have contributed to some of the most celebrated restaurants from around the world.

Chef’s Kitchen was a great source of inspiration. Our approach to ‘The Doughnut Family’ is to tell a story of legacy and how the jam doughnuts at Doughnut Kitchen have become so iconic. Not only does Chef’s kitchen possess mouth watering visuals of food, but it looks to dig a little deeper and explore a chef’s personal life by covering themes like family.

These are some shots from the Ben Shewry Chef’s Kitchen episode:

Two camera setup. Both static. One close and one mid. Interviewer on subject’s left with offside lighting. Camera’s are on interviewer’s right side Boom mic used.

 

Macro lenses used to get that dreamy look

 

Over the shoulder shot shows the relationship between chef and food

         

A step by step preparation takes viewer on the journey of the making of a food. The preparation. The ingredients. The chef’s precision and emotion. The tools. The finished product.

Establishing the location. The shots used to establish the location of Attica characterises it as being nondescript. Nothing differentiates it from the other similar looking buildings next to it.

(Cresswell 2014, p. 18) – But place is also a way of seeing, knowing, and understanding the world. When we look at the world as a world of places, we see different things. We see attachments and connections between people and place.

 

 

Other interviews add weight and meaning.

Day 1 of ‘The Doughnut Family’ – Thursday 19th of January

Due to Belinda and her father, Karl not being available to film till the 24th of January, ‘The Doughnut Group’ made use of our time by getting establishing and cutaway shots at Vic Market. As per our shot plan I got three timelapses. Visually, timelapses show the passing of time and with the American Doughnut Kitchen, a timelapse will illustrate why they are so popular and their jam donuts brings in an endless line of customers…

 

Timelapse Tutorial:

Gee begins the tutorial with tips on how to scout for good locations to set up your night sky time-lapse. Gee actually seeks out interesting foregrounds to contrast with the movement of the night sky or frame it in unique ways. Finding bodies of water to reflect the movement of the stars is another technique Gee uses in his location scouts.

Planning Time-lapses:

(From No Film School Website:)

Gee uses PhotoPills, a mobile app that includes a lunar calendar and a 2D Milky Way planner, to determine the best days and times for his time-lapses. The app’s planner enables you to figure when the Milky Way will be passing over to optimise the timing of your shoot.

Gee also uses Star Walk, another mobile app that lets you see which constellations will be visible on a clear night from a specific location using your phone’s GPS. Since you will need to arrive in the daylight to set up your gear, Star Walk allows you to pinpoint which sections of the sky will be optimal for your framing later at night.