Along with this, I have used white text on a black background when introducing the original project as this gives the appearance as the text being completely factual, and accurate.
Each “day” of filming starts with an establishing shot to set the scene, and this is also a panning shot to show more of the frame for the audience. Usually these establishing shots are before a set of scenes that are filmed within the same place .The shot of the house shows that the area is fairly suburban and standard in a terraced house, so that the campaign is just being done by a normal person and therefore could be done by anyone, this is a way of creating a relationship with the audience. By creating this image, the idea could inspire the audience to do a free hug campaign themselves. When filming the shot of the station, I purposefully did a high angle shot, which gives the impression that something is foreboding or about to happen, and the view of the camera is over looking the event. I thought this would help to build up the tension for the audience, and was used in documentaries such as “Touching the Void”
Within the documentary I have chosen to include two talking head interviews from two people who have different opinions of the free hug campaign. This way the audience get two different views, and it appears to be unbiased.
A talking head shot was appropriate for this, as the attention is on the speaker and their opinions can be put across clearly. I found this to be effective in the three-minute documentary “Smoking Day Zero”, as it was one speaker throughout.
Each interview was also filmed within the house which was in the first establishing shot, I thought this would add to the idea of these being normal people in natural surroundings, and not previously set up at all. For example, the second interview is filmed in the kitchen, and the first on a couch.
At the beginning of the documentary, I have included some “found footage” in the form of some photos of the original free hug campaign, and ones that have followed after it to show the large impact that its already had on the world, and the 80 countries its been in. There is a famous video of clips from the original campaign, which is quite well known around the Internet, so by including some intertextuality, the audience may already recognise the campaign and images included.
After this there is a MCU stood in front of a brick wall, talking about the effects of the free hug campaign. The brick wall could connote the formality and monotonous ways in which we live, and how the free hug campaign could change this and “bring people together”. I got the idea of having the first shot by a brick wall from Pink Floyd’s song “Another brick in the wall”, where many of the lyrics could be seen as challenging the idea of every one being the same, and living in a society where no one cares anymore. One of the aims of the free hug campaign was to challenge this and show the world that strangers aren’t that bad.
The fade at the end works well as it leaves the results of the campaign to the audience’s imagination. Going along with the idea of building tension, I decided to film on a train as the thought of travelling to do the free hugs creates even more anxiety. In addition to this, it is another talking head, speaking about feeling nervous about what is going to happen and this adds to the edgy situation.
There were some technical difficulties when filming my documentary, for example when uploading on to the editing program, there was a fault that created lines across each shot, and after trying to overcome this with different cameras, I had to work around it and accept that some shots were partially distorted. As well as this, when filming a computer screen, the screen itself flickers which makes it difficult to see what is being shown.
With more advanced equipment I would have been able to concentrate more on lighting, and making sure that each shot was clear and the lighting was directed on to the subject. I would have like to use a microphone as well to aid the narrative.
As well as this, if the piece was able to be longer, I would have liked to go on to have the free hug campaign take place, and film the results of it and peoples reactions.
Overall the documentary fulfils its purpose, and together with the camera angles and the narrative the effect on the audience is successful. I am happy with the outcome of my documentary, however I would have like to be able to make it longer, with more of an emphasis on the general publics point of views towards such a campaign that involves spontaneous human contact so that the audience can establish more of a relationship with the documentary. I feel that the “diary” style worked well, and that because of this, there was able to be a personal feel that the audience could identify with.
