Studio Practice: OUGD603 - 60 Sec Doc

OUGD603

60 Sec Doc

Research

I decided I wanted to create a documentary about my friend Natasha Sinha. She is a triathlete based in Leeds. She is currently training in partnership with The University of Leeds and Leeds Triathlon Centre in the build up to the European Cup.

I wanted to showcase the different disciplines involved in triathlon and how hard she works.

I began by researching existing short films on sports. Mainly adverts for sports wear. My favourites were the London 2012 Paralympics advert and Under Armour's 'Its what you do in the dark that puts you in the light' ad.

London 2012 Paralympics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuAPPeRg3Nw
energetic sound track
Starts by setting the scene
low motion cinematic clips
Just music and subtitles - no voice over

Michael Phelps - Under Armour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDQDTPWNcQ0&t=4s
slower song - but lyrics are relevant to Michael phelps ('its the last goodbye I swear' - referring to his short lived retirement.)

After researching what I wanted the short film to feel like, I then had to learn how to use a camera in order to get it to look right.

Filming in low light
I decided that I wanted to shoot Natasha at the running track, the pool and on a static bike in the gym (as filming her on a road bike would have been too difficult.) Her running sessions took place in the evening so I had to learn how to shoot a movie in low light.

When shooting in low light I needed a lens that would let as much light as possible in so the image didn't look grainy. I wanted to keep the ISO as low as possible to keep the noise down with meant I needed a small f stop such as f1.8. I tried to keep use a really shallow depth of field because the lower the f stop the wider the lens opens, so the more light can enter.

To learn how to use the camera I watched a lot of youtube videos. Particularly those by Peter McKinnon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPytBIKUD-k&t=602s.

I also read the book 'Read this if you want to take great photographs.' by Henry Carroll.

Style
I researched film makers on youtube. I used youtube as my main resource as film makers on this platform tend to keep their films short. I looked at the work of Tim Kellner (Timintothewild) and Ollie Ritchie (ritchieollie). I watched how they used music to cut their clips together and how they told a story in a short amount of time. Mostly they play music over the top of their clip with the clip having very little or no noise attached to it. If there is speech, it tended to be superimposed over the film.
I was also interested in how they colour graded their film. I think this makes a massive difference to the feel and atmosphere of their work.
Typography is also carefully consider. It is animated to fit well with the film and the typeface fits the characteristics they are trying to convey.

Case Studies

Ollie Ritchie - London 2017 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sIrtfIiV1s