This week’s reading will be beneficial for our final piece. We use documentaries and interviews to tell stories to the audience. ”
Many documentary filmmakers understand that the truth is not always necessary (Austin Citation 2006, 822): entertainment value and attempts to convey either their own argument or the argument of their subject often take priority. “(Morton, P 2021) In the interviewer’s In description, we will intersperse some shooting scenes, on the one hand, to help the audience better understand the occurrence of the case, and on the other hand, to add some interest to the video. When selecting interviewers at the beginning, our team was considering people from the police. In Mr Trotter, Neighbor and Mrs Certer, we chose the neighbour as the main character to tell the case. We hope to show more details of the case and the characteristics of the character in life through the neighbour. At the same time, we have also thought about whether telling the case from the neighbour’s perspective will be unfair. Too much character emotion. But in fact, the emotional expression of real case documentaries is not manipulative (Morton, P 2021). On the contrary, emotional expression can better let the audience understand the information of the characters in the case, and at the same time obtain people’s emotional feelings. The certification makes it easier for the audience to accept the views conveyed by the documentary.
During this week’s shooting practice, we tried two interview scenes, one with the murderer and one with the neighbour. Hannah suggested adding different perspectives to the interview screen so that the screen would not be too monotonous. The composition of the picture and characters requires more attention. Try to place the characters in the centre of the picture so that the audience can focus on the characters.

In the final product, I was responsible for writing the script. This time writing the script made me realise that a good script can make filming easier. In the process of writing a script, I always have many factors to consider, and I have to know every detail and character set of the original script. At the same time, in order to ensure that the script can be better presented, I need to discuss it with the team members constantly. This role has greatly developed my leadership skills.

Reference:

Morton, P. (2021). Stylistic choices in true-crime documentaries: The duty of responsibility between filmmaker and audience. Media Practice and Education, 22(3), 239–252.

Austin, Regina. 2006. “The Next New Wave: Law-Genre Documentaries, Lawyering in Support of the Creative Process, and Visual Legal Advocacy.” Media & Entertainment Law Journal 16 (3): 809–868.