Lachlan Pasfield Production Blog
- uondocumentary
- Mar 19, 2021
- 9 min read
Updated: Jun 8, 2021
Week 2
Prior to the first class, myself and some peers already had an idea of what we wanted to do for our documentary. Some time ago, Tom told us about a local bushranging gang that roamed the Newcastle and Hunter region during the 1800s. They were called the 'Jew Boy Gang'. Only having lasted approximately six months, the gang never killed anyone during their hold-ups and raids and were strangely well-liked among locals. Covering themselves in decadent jewellery and clothing, they also famously wore pink ribbons as an identifier. It was not until one of the gang members shot at and accidentally killed a store clerk in self defence that saw the capture and eventual execution of the gang. Personally, this story captured my attention for numerous reasons, however, I believe the most pressing was the fact that it is such a local story, yet not one I had heard before. I knew instantly that this was a story I wanted to tell.
During the first class, introductions were made and ideas shared. It was very interesting to me to hear what others were thinking of making and specifically why they wanted to make it. While we already had a good idea of who we wanted in our group, we still were heavily directed by the week's reading on 'Working in Groups' (Costello, Tipping and Street 2009). This suggested several approaches to test your group's compatibility. One such area to explore is individual's timetables to ensure we are all able to meet regularly (p. 1). The reading also suggested that all members should share similar aims and objectives and more generally, interests (ibid). This was all very easy and successful, indicating that our group has a strong compatibility. It was agreed that Tom would direct, Sam would produce, Lachlan would operate the camera, and I would record the sound.
The other reading for the week is 'What is a Synopsis? An Outline? A Treatment?' (Screen Australia 2009). This was useful for re-familiarising myself with these terms and getting my brain into that creative documentation mindspace again.
Week 3
The reading for this week was Chapter 7 'Research of 'Directing the Documentary' (Rabiger 2015). For me, the first line was the most memorable, and that being "Research means immersing yourself in your subject" (p. 122). Immersing yourself. And I felt that to be especially true for our historical expository documentary. Research would be a major part of this process.
As a group, we went to the university library and managed to find a few books on the history of the Jew Boy Gang. We agreed that over the next week and before our next class, we would all research as much as we can about the factual history and events of the gang while also keeping in mind last week's reading and what it says about story. This being, "Story, as distinct from plot, is the key emotional relationships and conflicts of characters in pursuit of their goals, which develop into a series of events" (Screen Hunter 2009, p. 2). What I found was quite intriguing. There appeared to be two distinct accounts/representations of the gang. One branded them as traditional bushrangers, who stole, thieved and shot their way to a life of meaningless crime. The other accounts appeared to mythologise the gang. They were presented as unconventional 'robinhood-esque' type figures who were almost idolised in a way. It was through this immersion into the subject that I was able to gain a much better understanding of not only our subject but what our story could be!
Week 4
This week was all about pitching and formulating ideas. Although it felt as though we had only just started the course and yet we were already being asked to pitch our idea, it ended up being a major advantage as we were more or less forced to get on top of all the initial groundwork for the project. This was a highly collaborative process and saw everyone in the group contribute to formulating the synopsis, themes, story world and importance of the story for the screen, regardless of individual crew role. It was also important to have everyone present for these decisions to ensure we were all on the same page moving forward.
Rabiger (2014) writes "By pitching your film you rehearse with audiences until you can explain its essentials rapidly and attractively" (p. 55). The bulk of feedback we received was that we were over-explaining the story and not necessarily leaving the audience 'wanting more.' We were advised that much of our pitch would be better in a proposal format and that the pitch should rather act as a 'taster'. We all took this feedback on board and will learn from this experience. As Rabiger (2014) states, "What you must convey is your passion and belief in the special qualities of the story" (p.55).
Towards the end of this week, we also applied through Screen Hunter for several locations, one of which being Doughboy Hollow. The location of the final standoff between The Jew Boy Gang and the Police Magistrate William Denny Day and his law enforcement.
Week 5
"Most documentary films make no sense without the soundtrack. You could do away with the picture and not lose much of the content" - Alan Barker (Costello, Tipping and Street 2008).
"The role of sound in these films is very important, and directors give it a lot of attention. We work hard, we try, it is not just enough to illustrate. We must build a character in its own music" - François-Eudes Chanfrault "(CinemaFantastique.net interview 2008).
This week's lecture was focused on sound in Documentary and the significance it plays. I found this content to be very helpful to me and my process moving forward with the project. As we are striving for a bit of an unconventional expository documentary, which will primarily be made of shadow/live-action recreations and narration, my approach to the sound will have to vary compared to other groups. Utilising the new knowledge I have acquired from the lecture and reading, as well as my own creative decisions, I have elaborated and further detailed my soundscape plan moving forward. That can be found here:
Due to the multiple sound inputs, my biggest challenge will be ensuring all components converge to form a consistent scene. This will mostly come down to the quality and volume of the sound recorded. While most of the sound work will come into play during the edit, without the fundamentals no amount of editing skill can correct bad audio.
During this week we also cast a local actor to portray Teddy 'The Jew Boy' Davis. His name is Luke Consani and Tom has had previous experience directing him on a short film. Due to our tight schedule, this is a big advantage. The general structure of the documentary was also continued to be developed through group contribution.
Week 6
This week was very much experimental. As a group, we met up at the university and found a spare room in the ICT building to test out some shadow play style filming. Tom bought a translucent shower curtain and I bought my green screen frame minus the cloth. We attached the shower curtain to the frame and used just one hard light behind the sheet to illuminate any objects between the two. We did have to play around with angles and reflectors a fair bit to find the perfect balance, but once we did it was very exciting to see our visions coming to life and from our heads onto the camera. Fortunately, we also realised ahead of time that a much larger shower curtain would be needed during the actual shoot. Ultimately, it was really beneficial to do this test run and saved us a lot of problems and subsequent troubleshooting on the day. The test footage recorded can be found here:
Mid Semester Break
The first week of the break was easily our busiest when it comes to the actual production of our documentary. We met every single day and managed to get a lot done.
Monday - Storyboard/shotlist
Tom, Lachlan and I met up and spent the whole day going through the storyboard and shot list. As discussed previously, we already had an idea for the visual style we wanted to encompass but had not gone into shot specific detail. This was a long but enjoyable process. For the first draft, we let our imaginations run wild and assumed anything was within reason. Basically, we mapped out our ideal film. After that, we went through it from a more realistic viewpoint taking into consideration both our current resources and capabilities. We also made a list of all the props, costumes and set design we would need for the shoot days and delegated these among oursleves.
Tuesday - Crew contracts/other paperwork/gathered props and costumes
Sam was able to join us, and this allowed us to go through all the pre-production documents that were sent to the producers earlier. The main documents were the crew contracts. We also gathered all the props, costumes and set design we had managed to source since yesterday and documented these. We got word from Screen Hunter that the likelihood of securing our desired locations was doubtful. This was upsetting and launched a new conversation into the audiovisual components of the story. We ultimately decided that our efforts would be better spent adapting and coming up with a new plan rather than pursuing the original locations. We decided that the archival newspaper articles will play a larger role in directing the story.
Wednesday - Film
Overall, the first shoot day was fairly positive. We booked out the television studio at the university, which gave us a really nice space to work in. It did take us a bit longer than expected to set up and gain our bearings, but once we began we gained momentum. Trial and error became a large portion of the shoot. Initially, I did think that I may be a bit lost as there was no audio to record over the next few days. However, that quickly became apparent that that would be no concern. I found myself performing a number of roles and tasks from lighting, to focus pulling to helping Tom manage and set up shots. Our actor Luke was great and arrived in costume. He was very easy to work with and got on really well with the whole crew, which made everything that little bit easier. Tom was also smart enough to mock up a rush of the footage at the end of the day. This allowed us to not only analyse what shots we had covered in preparation for the next day but also provided ongoing motivation. Day one rushes can be found here:
Thursday - Film
Another big day of filming. Fortunately, the SOCI team Neill and Chris, allowed us to leave our setup in the studio overnight for the next day. This saved a lot of time in the morning and we were able to get straight into shooting. As the day rolled on, we became even more productive. The stress became less apparent and the excitement more so. We also had the idea to play music to get the actors in the cinematic headspace. As I was not recording sound, this was no obstacle and worked really well. If able, it is definitely something I will continue to do on future projects. Any problems with production we encountered were of minimal nature and easily overcome. I believe in the end we ended up getting about 12 or so different shots, all with multiple options for the edit. The set design did seem to develop and enhance as we got more comfortable with the process. Rushes were made and distributed and all was on track. Day two rushes can be found here:
Friday - Film
Unfortunately, Sam was unable to join us on our last day of filming in the television studio. However, we were able to source an extra pair of hands through Emily, who acted as our clapper and runner. This was a big help and much appreciated by everyone. Due to our efficiency over the last two days, there was no gripping time constraint we were battling against. Detailed preparation allowed us to know exactly what shots we needed and we had the confidence we could get them. Just as with the previous days, we powered through and were quite productive. At the end of the day, we got all the shots we required and were happy with our efforts. The rushes from that day were also created and saved on our website. Day three rushes can be found here:
Week 7
Once again, research was the main focus of this week. As we are striving for a historically accurate docu-drama, a factual and accurate portrayal is crucial. As mentioned earlier, our documentary is going to be driven by newspaper articles, which we will have to be sourced. We collectively decided that the best way to go about this would be to divide the story up into 'sections' and delegate each crew member a section to source articles for. We also decided that we would all use the online archival database 'Trove' for consistency. I was delegated the 'Introduction to Teddy and the gang' section. I found that many articles were often unintelligible and of really poor quality. This was often frustrating as I knew the content and information was there, but I couldn't jeopardise the production quality by including them. After a lot of time spent sifting through the database, I managed to find good quality articles to be included in the documentary.
Week 8
This week we had to prepare a prototype to show in class. The week spent leading up to this was really difficult for us. We found it really tough to find suitable times to meet up and unfortunately didn't get to add too much to the rough cut which we had shown the previous week. This added a lot of stress and pressure to the already existing expectations and time constraints. However, we were determined to not let this setback throw us off course and affect the rest of the post-production stage.
Comments