Mobile Phone Documentary Evaluation

For this project, we had to create a documentary about mobile phones by interviewing different people to see what they thought about mobile phones.We had to include use of A-Roll and B-Roll and frame our interviewees in the camera to make our documentary more interesting.

Throughout the documentary, we used A-Roll as the interviews with the blue screen behind 2 out of three of them. We also used B-Roll as extra pieces of video to include when editing the video. These were videos of people using their mobiles in different ways such as talking to someone on it, texting and also using apps such as Twitter. When conducting the interviews, we placed the person to the left or the right of the camera shot like the rule of thirds while looking to the side of the camera at the interviewer which is a basic convention of interviews in documentaries. This made the overall shot look better as the person wasn't in the middle looking directly at the camera.

As we had two interviewees in front of the blue screen, when we were edting, we learnt how to add an image/video in the background of something relevent to the documentary which were different mobile phones and also the front of a mobile phone shop. Also while we were editing, we learnt how to cut different parts of the interview out to only include specific parts we wanted such as cutting out the questions and adding in text before the person speaks. I think that this made it look more professional as the sound quality wouldn't had been as good because the interviewer didn't have a microphone.

In the background of the whole documentary, we included a song relevent to the documentary which was Beyonce - Video Phone. We thought that this sounded good as the documentary was being played and also made it sound less boring as it did before we added it. The sound throughout the documentary was the answers to the questions being asked that had good quality sound and are clear for the audience to hear.

Overall, I think the way we have edited the A-Roll with the B-Roll with the sound/music brings everything together and makes it flow smoothly. I also think that this makes it more interesting.

Mobile Phone Documentary

Basic Conventions Of A Documentary

A-Roll Footage Of Interviews

•     Rule Of Thirds

 

The person being interviewed should not be in the middle of the camera shot but to the left or the right of the frame. Also their eyes should be looking towards the interviewer on the opposite side so if the interviewee is on the right they should be looking towards the left. As the interviewee is on the side, the mise en scene should reflect the topic they're talking about. At the bottom left of the shot, the name of the interviewee should come up so the audience know who they are.

B-Roll Footage Of Other Relevent Material

• Close-ups of relevent objects
• Long shots of locations
• Tracking shots of object moving

Archive Footage

Archive footage is where you use a video from a while ago that someone else filmed to add extra information into your documentary.

• From film libraries/Youtube

 

Still Photographs

Voice-Over Reading A Prepared Speech

A voice-over is someone speaking over a bit of filmed footage or a photograph which adds extra information while looking/watching something that they are talking about.

Non-Diegetic Music Made To Match The Subject

Non-diegetic music is music made relevent for the documentary to be put in over the top of a video or quietly in the background as someone is speaking which may get louder when they stop speaking.