3rd shoot.

AND WE ARE BACK!

After the previous disappointments that we had I can FINALLY say that i am satisfied with our shoot today! Yes, the interviews are done. We are glad that one of the main parts of the documentary is completed.

Xinhua Mall was a different experience. The kind of people in this Mall were different than those we met in Mall of Lahore. The reason why I am saying this is that they were very cooperative. They showed a lot of enthusiasm in the documentary and gave really good interviews. Some even complimented us on our topic which felt great as we now know that our topic is something that people would be interested in knowing more about it.

The shop managers were very nice to us. We did not face must difficulty in convincing the shop managers to let us shoot inside. Although we got two to three rejections but this figure is not match for that we got in Mall of Lahore. The interviews are taken on a standard level and the lights are alright. The sound quality is nice and so is the quality of the footage.

However, we had to take permission from the owner of the Mall first. This issue did not arise at Mall of Lahore, as there was no one to stop us. The minute we took out our camera we were attacked by a security who simply refused to let us shoot. Then we asked him to guide us to the manager’s so that we could ask him to permit us to take some shots. The manager first listened to the documentary topic anf the institution we belonged too. Then after a 4 to 5 seconds silence he agreed to let us shoot in the mall. *Phew*

Secondly, the Mall was not much filled with people. We had to wait for a few minutes for more customers to come in. The place was not crowded. But I take as a plus point because too many people are hard to stop from coming in front of the camera.

We did not forget to take pictures this time! These are a few pictures and videos of us during the shoot. Thankfully, provided with a helper (Sabaina’s cook) this time who took all these pictures and made videos of us.

I’m satisfied with today’s shoot and I am glad that we are one step closer towards the competition of our documentary. Hope the interviews looks good in the documentary as well.





Sabaina and I, recording an interview



Me explaining the concept of the documentary to her for the interview




Sabaina recording an interview

3rd day of shoot planning.

Tomorrow, we are going to try to re-take all the interviews. This time we have changed our location to Xinhua Mall, as previously we took shots at Mall of Lahore. Reason being that we do not want to keep our recces limited to just one place. It’ll be better for us to experiment new places as who knows we might find our target audience there in a large number.

This time we are prepared. We have decided to take interviews in shops so that we get the right quality of sound without any disruptions from the surroundings. 

Secondly, we are going to take shots with a DSLR camera. We think that the quality matters a lot and there’s a huge difference between the resolutions of a DSLR than that obtained from a digital camera. Thirdly, we will make sure that we take shots that we take mid shots of all the interviewees.

Considering that the previous interviews were not consistent as some captured too much of the background whereas some had little background being showcased in the interviews. 

Fourth, we will NOT forget to take our pictures during the shoot. We know how important this is for our project and so taking pictures of ourselves will be one of the priorities. 

Furthermore, the fact that Sabaina and I were a bit nervous about asking completely random people to give interviews for us as it was our first time. Now, that we have already been gone through this phase we have gained a lot of exposure so none of us is nervous about this part of the interviews.

-Excited for tomorrow!

2nd shoot.

We are back from the shoot. What an tiring day it was! The shoot was not that bad but it was not perfect either.

We, again, had a lot of problems during the shoot. As this was our first time ever, running behind people and convincing them to give interviews, it was very hectic and time consuming.

So, first of all we had difficulties in finding the people who would actually give an interview after listening to details of our documentary. A lot of people used to first agree to give interviews but later after they had found out that the interview was going to be taken on a video camera they simply refused to give an interview. Either because they were ‘shy’ or they did not have the permission from their parents or husbands to appear on camera. In some cases, a few ladies listened to the concept with great interest and showed a lot of enthusiasm. They then asked us to wait for 10 minutes so that they could do some work of theirs and promised to return for the interview. We waited for them for more than 20 minutes and later we realized that they ditched us :/ this wasted a lot of time and energy of ours!

As we had to run after people at different areas of the mall, it took a lot of time for us to set the camera again and again at different locations for every new interview. We had to carry the load of the tripod at almost all the floors of the mall which was very enervating.

Moreover, Sound was the biggest problem! In the mall the walls are construed in a way that they echoed the sounds due to which we heard a lot of noise in the interviews. There was loud music and hundreds of people talking because of which the voice of our interviewee was lost in between all those sounds. We could not place the camera at a short distance from the interviewee either as the camera would not have been able to a take a mid-close up of the interviewee while giving the interview.

In order to escape from the hundreds of different sounds dominating the entire mall, we decided to go take interviews in different shops. However, the shop managers refused to let us shoot in the shops as they were not permitted to let people take pictures or make videos. Finally, to our advantage, we located two to three shops that allowed to take interviews inside. They were very nice to us and even agreed on switching off the music so that we could easily record the voices of the interviewees.

Lights were also a big issue. Every shop and corner of the Mall had different types of lights due to which the lights in the interviews we recorded could be seen at varying levels. However, interviews are supposed to be completely natural without any make up. These interviews are recorded this way due to which these lights should not be an issue.

Later on, after we saw the videos on the computer we realized that we were so much caught up in finding people and explaining to them the whole concept behind the documentary, we forgot to take shots that were of equal level. Some shots covered a lot area of the surroundings whereas, the others were mid close up shots which covered comparatively lesser area, which disrupted the flow and the cohesiveness of the clips when played in one order.

However, after experiencing all these problems we have learned a lot. We are now aware of all the possible problems we could face during the interviews and we will try our best to eliminate all these problem as much as we can the next time we take interviews at some other location. I think of all these dilemmas as lessons. We have learned our lesson and now we are prepared to take the kind of interviews we are aiming for.

I’m afraid I have no pictures to post here. Honestly, we were so busy in taking interviews that we completely forgot to take our pictures or make videos. But I think we could be excused considering the number of problems we faced during our visit to the mall.

-Enthusiastic about the second ‘batch’ of interviews.

2nd day of shoot planning.

As Dawood and Ibrahim are busy for few days. We have decided to take interviews of our audience in the meantime. We will be going for the interviews tomorrow at Mall Of Lahore; reason being that we will be able to find a lot of people under one roof which will save us the hassle of finding the right kind of people for the interview and the fact that every segment visits that mall and so we are hoping not to face much difficulty in locating our target audience. The interviews will be shot via a digital camera and in the end the interviewee will be asked for their opinion on the topic in one word i.e. yes, no or maybe, which will be showcased on different colored chart papers.

Following are the questions we will be asking the interviewees:

Q. In your opinion, have children these days shifted from outdoor activities to those of indoor activities?

Q. If yes, what could be the reason for this change in preferences?

-Hope tomorrow’s shoot goes well!

First shoot.

Today was our first day of shoot. To be honest, it did not go as well as we planned it to be. There were a lot of problems, we certainly did not see those dilemmas coming.

First of all, due to some problems at home I was 2 hours late at the location which pretty much left us with no time at all to shoot the scenes, so, the time we had was a big problem for us. After I reached there it took us a while to do the settings of the scene, e.g. preparing Ibrahim and Dawood for the scenes, setting up the camera, searching for the best looking background so that the frame of the interviews would look good, adjusting the right zoom level etc.

Other than that, we had a lot of issues with finding the correct type of lighting level we were looking for. As we did not have any professional lights setup with us and the fact that it was an indoor shoot we had to work with the lights that were available in the house which were either giving too harsh the effect Ibrahim’s face or making the footage very dark.

Furthermore, Sabaina and I planned to take close ups of e.g. Ibrahim’s hand or his face during the interviews to show his body language etc. but we failed to capture those scenes as our digital camera lacked the option of a smooth pace of footage when the camera zoomed in.

Then, electricity was definitely an addition to our problem. During our shoot the electricity went out and we were left with even less lights that we previously had. This further delayed our shoot as we had to wait the electricity to come back so that we could continue with the shoot.

Furthermore, Dawood’s shoot was delayed a little as he had an exam the other day and he was busy studying with his tutor. The poor kid had had to take time out of busy schedule for us. Some shots turned out to be jerky when we saw the footage on the computer; we did not realize that during the time of shoot.

These were some of the main problems that we faced during the shoot. The shoot did not go as we planned, which is definitely a disappointment. Sabaina and I have decided to re take all the scenes as we are capable of doing allot better than this. After all the hard work we have put in in the research and planning process we shall not create a product with such disruptions.

These are some of the pictures we took during the shoot. I didn’t manage to take a lot of pictures of myself as Sabaina was busy dealing with the camera and we did not have a third person to take pictures of us during the shoot. The following video was made by Sabaina when I tried taking a few trail shots of Ibrahim. This shot in particular was the low angle shot that I was trying to capture.

 

Sabaina taking Dawood's Interview

                                                    Me taking a low angle shot of Dawood

                                                                   Reviewing the shot

First shoot planning.

So, we have now entered the construction zone! 

We are one day away from the shoot of our documentary. Finally, the project we are working on since months now is going to come to existence tomorrow. The level of excitement is too much. We will be going at Ibrahim and Dawood’s place, as they play a very significant role in the development of the media text. Tomorrow, we will be covering Ibrahim, Dawood’s and their parents’ interviews, taking shots of them carrying out their normal routines and some footage of their consoles and other objects in their room. As this part plays the role of an example of our title, it holds an imperative position in making the content of our story strong. We will be using a Digital Camera for the shoot. Sabaina will be taking care of the camera mainly and I will be responsible for the settings of the scene.

-Hope everything goes well. *Fingers crossed*

Shot Division

Posted by : Sabaina and Aiman 

Below is the shot division we did for our documentary. We were provided with the option to either make sketches of the shots or draw a table out of it. We decided make a table as it was more organised and the fact that none of us is a good artist, so we went along with the table.

Scene description		Camera Shot	Camera angle	Camera movement	Subject	Location
Opening sequence A montage of different indoor and outdoor activities.  A kid on a swing and then a quote appears on screen.		long shot	Eye level	static	Kids	Outdoor
Kids playing and people using their gadgets e.g. phone.		Long shots, macro shots	Eye level	Static	Children’s and adults	Parks and indoors
Short interviews of general public.		Mid shot, medium long shot	Eye level	static	People	Cafés ,book stores ,shopping malls
A shot of the house of our main character from outside.		Wide shot	Eye Level	Pan left/right	House	outdoor
A shot of our main character		low angle,mid shot	Eye level	static	Character (dawood)	His House
Detail interview of our character		Mid shot	Eye level	Static	character	TV lounge
His different shots. Filming his activities/routine through out the day.		Long shot, mid shot, zoom, over the shoulder, tilt down, revolving shot and establishing shot.	Eye level, low angle	Following, static and  pan	1 character (Dawood)	His House, in particular, his tv lounge, his room, his study room and his dining table.
Detail interview of his parents. More clips of their son activities in between.		Mid shot, long shot, marco shot	Eye level	Static, zoom in , zoom out , pan	His parents, dawood	Parents’ room, study, tv lounge
Short clips of people with a paper written YES, NO OR MAYBE.		Medium long shot and Mid shot	Eye level	Static	Random people	Various places

BUDGET

Posted by Aiman and Sabaina

Items	Quantity	Price (Rs.)	Total amount (Rs.)
Tripod	1	2500	2500
Petrol	-	1500	1500
Lights	2	100	200
Communication	-	500	500
Chart paper	4	20	80
Collar Mic	1	1500	1500
Headphones	1	1500	1500
		Total amount	7780

The Cast

Here's the list of the cast of our documentary:

Dawood Khan (Main Character)



Dawood's Father



Dawood's Mother

SCHEDULE

Posted by : Sabaina and Aiman 

SHOOTING SCHEDULE
DAY 1: 16^TH FEBRUARY (Shoot of Dawood and his parents)
DAY 2: 21^ST FEBRUARY (For interviews and outdoor filming)

Mise-en-scene of our Documentary

Posted by Aiman and Sabaina:

Mise-en-scene is everything done as opposed to editing. It covers the settings of characters, backgrounds, props etc. in any media text. The product which we are producing does not need to have all the elements of Mise-en-scene because our documentary is based on facts and nothing is made up. 

Below we discussed the components:

• Locations
• Character's propping
• Lights and Colors

LOCATION: The shoot of the documentary will take place both indoors and outdoors. This particular element of MISE EN SCENE holds an imperative position in our media text.  The documentary is going to be filmed at various locations in order to get authentic results from the public regarding our topic. Following is the recce:

• ·         Lahore Gymkhana

• ·         Generation

• ·         McDonalds

• ·         Alfatah

• ·         Tutti Frutti

• ·         HKB

• ·         Character’s house

• ·         Expresso
• ·         Model Town Park
•           Xinhua Mall
•           Mall of Lahore

CHARACTER’S PROPPING:  This defines the personality of the character, as this documentary revolves around two main characters and their gadgets. The title of the documentary signifies change in trend that has led to children using gadget more than before. So, due to this, the gadgets that our characters will carry along are the main props of the media text.  Furthermore, we will be using 3 chartpapers of colors, red, yellow and green. As we have decided to show the opinion of the people in one word i.e. Yes, No and Maybe, we will be writing these three words on those chartpapers with green signifying Yes, Yellow referring to Maybe and Red connoting No, we have chosen these colors in accordance to the traffic lights, which are red, blue and green, commanding people through those t

hree different colors.

 
 



LIGHTS AND COLORS:  The main light throughout the external shoot of the documentary will be the daylight, as there will be a lot of interviews.  However, the internal shoot is going to be soft lighting, with key lights used during the interviews of the characters and their parents. In the beginning of the documentary we will use natural colors to prevent the footage from giving a fake look to the audience. At the end, the colors will be exaggerated, with editing, to make the scene colorful which will complement the playful nature of the topic.