Friday, June 19, 2020

trailer story Board

The trailer will have to be interesting and eye-catching but not giving too much away to the audience meaning they feel they don't need to watch the actual video so it has to entice and make the audience want to know more on the matter.

Shot 1 - wide still shots of the fragments of the interview 


Shot 2 - Moving shot of puppets to add color to catch the audiences eye 




Shot 3 - wide still shots of the fragments of the interview 




Shot 4 - moving shot of a table of photos with audio on top 


The final shot - Myself working on a puppet at my work table. This is an interesting place to end the video as it will make the audience of the trailer think "what is the making" and "will I find out by watching the documentary"



Credit - Teen Interest Logo

Story Board

Opening - Shot of the Teen Interest Animated Logo 



Opening - Intertextual references in the form of clips of retro puppet television programs such as The Muppets, Sesame Street, etc. This is used as they are a big inspiration to me as a puppeteer and will be recognized by the target audience and will strike an interest with the youth of today who are becoming ever more interested in retro culture


Shot 1 - Panning across shot as a rack of puppets which I have made in my journey as a puppeteer 

 

Shot 2 - a wide shot of me "hard at work" at my work table. This was a common convention within the documentaries I analyzed for research. During this shot, there will be a voice-over of me giving some expositionary detail of the topic of the video 


Shot 3 - wide still shot of myself talking to the camera and relaying my experiences revolving puppetry. Talking directly to the camera.


Shot 4 - The audio of the previous shot carries on but without the visuals and we have a moving shot across a table of photos, newspaper clippings, and letters I have reviewed. This gives a very reminiscent nature to my video 


Shot 5 - Still wide shot of my parents giving some stories and experience of bringing up a child with an unusual hobby. This is a common feature of the documentary series "Teen Interest" so it is assumed that the audience will be familiar with this segment 


Shot 6 - Back to the shot of myself talking directly to the camera to give some more memories and closing thoughts 


The ending - reprise of the "Teen Interest" logo followed by credits 

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Linking my documentary to theory

My Documentary model is going to be based on the two models of the documentary. One is the "expository" and the other is the "observational"

Expository Documentary

It is part expositionary due to the fact that it exposes a certain topic. Also, I plan to have shots with a voice-over featuring myself and a voice-over presenter which will commentate the shot.
These are both techniques within an expositionary documentary

Observational Documentary

It will also be based around an observational documentary because first off it does not have a presenter. Secondly, it is observing the world around the audience and a topic that is somewhat unknown and the audience may wish to learn more on. Finally, it is giving a first-hand experience of something that happens in the world


My documentary will be a mixture between the conventions of these two models

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Statement of intent

Product 1

For my documentary, I want to create an informative, interesting insight into an art form that many may not know about. Most people are aware of famous puppets that are present in the media (i.e the muppets, sesame street, etc) but people don't think about the puppet makers or puppeteers, and this is what I aim to expose in my documentary. due to the documentary being such an unusual topic hopefully, it will effectively hold the audience's interest and entice them to watch more. As well as this, I want the video to be visually appealing and not be a regular "dull" documentary. To achieve this effect I will use bright colors where I can (e.g Backgrounds and buttons of the website). through the use of media language, in particular intertextuality, I will require a certain level of cultural competency at the start of the video as I will include snippets from the muppet show (a famous puppet related television show from the 80s). After my audience research, I attained the fact that my target audience is a middle-aged 40-50 age bracket, who will remember the Muppet Show. This use of intertextuality will engage an audience who already have an interest in puppets and will make them watch the documentary to learn more. Furthermore, I will also be paying homage to these Muppets and Muppet performers who inspired me. My documentary will not follow the conventions of a cliche documentary as such. It will not have a presenter who would usually narrate the whole thing. A common convention I noticed in my research of puppet documentaries was that they didn't have external narrators or presenters. In the puppet industry, the puppeteer is often forgotten about as the puppet takes the limelight so the documentaries are often a celebration that just focuses' on the puppeteer themself with no one else to steal the screen time. This is something I will replicate in my documentary. The color palette will be bright and vibrant with the highly saturated colors of the puppets I make. This will create a welcoming, friendly mise en scene for my video. The two social groups the feature in the Documentary will be my parents and I. The documentary is part of a series of short documentaries called "Teen Interest" It highlights young people who have interesting unusual hobbies and aims to let the audience learn more about them. A common feature of the series is to interview the parents to let them share their views on what it was like bringing up a child with unusual interest.

Product 2

For my website, I want to reflect on the puppetry industry context in the visual aesthetics of the website. For example, having a fur fabric border background (inspired Being Elmo documentary website). I will feature hidden links on the website that lead to interviews with myself giving some more detailed, tutorial information on the puppet characters I have made. These will act as easter eggs and will offer the audience that looked at the website something else that the documentary didn't feature. Furthermore, users of the website with a refined knowledge can access a special set of features that others can't. There will be a visible feature video of how to make a quick,  simple, fully functioning puppet at home.  In order to make a sense of brand identity, the color scheme of the website will be predominantly based around the puppets that are seen in the documentary. Finally, I will have a page of merchandise for T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and hats. That follows the same color scheme as the website which further anchors a sense of a brand identity due to the cross convergence of color and style.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Planning First Ideas

1) I would like to start the documentary with a time-lapse of myself building a puppet as the presenter introduces the documentary. This will give good expositionary detail of the film and gives the audience a taste of what the documentary is going to be about from the very beginning.

2) When talking to the camera and telling my story I will set up an array of the puppets I have made in the background to add colour and create the uplifting tone I desire. I will be situated in front of the work station where I build puppets to give the video an authentic feel and really immerse the viewer into the puppet making world 

3) I have many old photos of old newspaper cuttings, photos as a child and more recent ones. I will put these into a slide show and play that over some of my narration.

4) in the documentary "Being Elmo" which I analysed. There were sections that cut to Kevin's parents both sitting together at the kitchen table talking about Kevin as a child with a cup of tea and this created a very welcoming and calming image. I am going to replicate this kind of shot with my parents who I will film reminiscing on stories of my puppetry as a child and I will cut the best bits and feature them throughout the video.

Generic research Website research 2

I discovered a documentary that fit in with the subject of my documentary, puppets. Its called "Being Elmo" and its the life story of the puppeteer Kevin clash who is famous for his role as elmo in seseme street. Luckily this dcumentary also had a website to accompany it. This documentary was found on netflix

With consideration of the language used, I observed that the website features alot of things that create a strong sense of brand identity.



From the opening page we get a huge sense of brand identity. The outer boarder is red which both is the colour of elmo, kevins most well know character, but having watched the film, i know that kevin belives elmo symbolises the "love in everyone" the red of the boarder conveys this idea and gives it a very welcoming and loving sense about it. The grey behind the text creates a strong sense of brand identity because the Netflix thumbnail picture has that colour predominantly featuring in it.


The review section on the website creates a very positive representation of the documentary and features lots of positive language to describe it such as "Marvelous" "Extraordinary" and "touching"



In the same way as black fish documentary, Being Elmo has a photo section that gives some images that dont feature in the main video which give the watchers of the official video someting extra for discovering the website. It also has pictures that do feature in the documentary so the watchers of the documentary will recognise those moments in the film and feel remenicent.

Finally the website creates digital convergence via the use these social media links on the fore front of the websites home page.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Generic research: website research

None of my documentaries were accompanied by online media websites so I analysed this website for the popular netflix documentary; Blackfish.  Its about the inhumanity of sea world and how they treat and capture their whales.  I was specifically identirfying the cross platform convergence and how they have created brand identity.


1)

 The first thing you see as you open the website is this page which instantly creates a sense of brand identity because this is the thumb nail picure for the netflix documentary. We get the sense that this is the logo. There is lots of dark space in the picture that gives it an earie sense and immitates the dark tone of the documentary. 

2)

When you enter the website this similar "Blackfish" logo in the same font with the shadows either side of the word. It is at the top left hand of the screen to further anchor the brand identitiy. 

3)


The web page has links to its social media platforms which is a cross media convergent. However, They have been altered and are black rather than their usual colour. This is further anchoring the brand identity and creating consistencey. The website is heavily dominated by the colour black and this is a artistic touch to further that. 

4)

The website features a gallery section that are extra shots that dont feature in the film which gives the person visiting the wesite an added gain from those who dont


5)

these are all the areas you can visit in the website












website link

Website FINAL PRODUCT

  Website