My last post was all about our Vibrant Videos project, where we made 3 different videos to practice our filming and editing skills. As we learnt how to cut, trim and create videos with better quality we started to work on a much bigger project, a mini documentary. One thing we had to include in all of our documentaries was a interview, so that’s exactly how we started this project. For the first couple days we learnt how to interview, use the rule of thirds and how to record a interview professionally. Next we figured out what this project was on and we got to pick what our documentaries were on. I ended up basing my documentary on role models in sports and their affect on young athletes. I chose this topic do to the fact that sports are a massive part of my life and some of my role models in basketball have a influence on me. The next thing I did after deciding on my topic was to make a treatment, and then a screenplay. The treatment is a few lines about what the documentary is about, and the screenplay is effectively the script.
Every Maker class we would watch a short documentary and review it on its storytelling and filming techniques , then get to work either writing the screenplay, or editing our documentaries. These documentaries gave me some inspiration for my own documentary as it showed how camera angles can portray mood and how sounds can affect the viewing experience.
Next I had film, I found this the hardest part as we were given barely any time to get our filming done and I was very busy the weekend we were given. But I filmed in various locations including the weight room, a basketball court and my living room (where I interviewed my dad). In the start of my documentary I talked about if I think role models can help young athletes achieve their dreams then I start interviewing my dad a former college basketball and I asked him about if he had any role models and if they inspired him.
Now I had to edit, I found this challenging as I was pretty new to editing with iMovie and had to get the hang of a lot of things. Slowly I found out how to use the app and pieced together how to edit properly, I finish editing and I was finally done my video.
The whole process of making this documentary wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be but I had so many problems I ran into, in the end I pushed through and finished the project
, I was really happy to see it playing at the exhibition.
You can find my final documentary here