The Secret Life of 4 - Year Olds - An Observational Documentary Analysis

For this analysis, I chose to watch an observational documentary called 'The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds', which is all about 10 children coming into their nursery, with cameras everywhere and microphones on to capture all of the shenanigans they had, with scientists listening in to their conversations and telling the audience about the reasons that the kids are doing what they are doing. An observational documentary, as defined by Riley Hooper, a documentary filmmaker in Portland, Oregon in America, defines an observational documentary as they:

"eschew interviews, voice-over narration and a soundtrack, and instead present footage of real life as it unfolds. The effect is a documentary that tends to show, not tell, and invites each viewer to draw his or her own conclusions from the film." (Hooper, 2011)

I would describe this documentary as observational as it shows the actions of the kids playing without intruding on them. I liked this documentary as it showed the different personalities that the kids have and showing the scientific side of why the kids were acting the way they were. Another reason why I would describe this documentary as an observational documentary as they weren't really intruding when the kids were playing they were 'observing' them. 

With regards to the filming style, I was impressed with how the company rigged the camera to match the eye-level of the children and that allowed them to capture their conversations and actions without the children being aware. The storytelling approach was that initially there was an introduction of the nursery itself and the setup, and then each child had their own introduction where you met their parents and saw the child in their home environment. This enabled the viewer to form their own first impression of the character of the child, their lifestyle and their relationships with their parents. The shoot was filmed in two days, six months apart, which allowed the storytelling to show the children developing relationships and dealing with conflict.

I felt the way that the children were portrayed was positive as it was in a more natural environment rather than being interviewed in a studio. With the individual families it showed how different family setups can influence a child's behaviour. For example, the boy called Chaim was actually quite a bully and I think this could be because both the parents worked a lot and didn't spend much time with him as they would like and both the parents admitted that they don't spend as much time with him as they should. 

There were a number of experiments that were set up to see how the children would react. The most interesting ones being the den building exercise, where the children were split into two teams, one of the teams had all of the more dominating characters and they really struggled with the task as they failed to cooperate with each other and work as a team. On the other side, the less dominant children interacted well with each other and succeeded in building the better den. The only child with any resilience in the dominant team was a boy called Christian, who later on returned to making the den himself. Another interesting experiment that was set us was where there was a chocolate cake that was deliberately left unattended and no rules were given to the children beforehand. In my opinion, I liked this experiment because it showed some of the children taking risks and added drama to the storytelling. However, this scene was proved controversial as some viewers complained that this set up perceived the child as naughty when in fact they were no rules set.

Lastly, a similar dilemma was set up where a girl called Skyla was the only one that received chocolate in her leaving gift. The director chose Skyla to give the chocolate to because they knew that she would struggle to share with the other children, and they chose a chocolate bar with the same amount of squares as her peers. Whilst this made good TV viewing, in my opinion, this wouldn't normally happen as usually every child would receive the same gift so no child felt left out. I believe this portrayed Skyla in an unnecessarily negative way. Even though there are varying opinions on this documentary, overall, it was very successful as it went to continue on as a TV series. 

Emma Norris, a PhD student at the University College London, reviewed this documentary and said the following: "This show was definitely an entertaining watch. It evidently captured public attention, given the number of quotes and screen-grabs online the next day. However, focus tended to be on the comedy of conversation rather than the developmental insight drawn from this unique observation. Although experts were on board to analyse proceedings, discussion of the psychological processes and wider literature were very limited." (Norris, 2015). This following quote clarifies my point in saying that opinions were divided but the documentary still proved popular.

References:

Hooper, R. (2011) Documentaries defined. At: https://vimeo.com/blog/post/documentaries-defined/ (Accessed 16/05/2021)

Norris, E. (2015) The secret life of 4-year-olds. At: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/secret-life-4-year-olds (Accessed 18/05/2021)

Remembering Captain Sir Tom - A Documentary Analysis

I chose to watch 'Remembering Captain Tom', a short documentary on BBC iPlayer as this had similarities to our documentary that we are making in this unit. Both the BBC and our documentary focus on inspirational people that have created more positivity during the Covid-19 pandemic. Both documentaries have a personal storytelling approach, using a one-on-one interview technique, the settings were similar between Captain Sir Tom's story and Karl's segment, as they were both filmed outdoors with a calming atmosphere. Also, the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions meant that filming outside was safer at the time of filming. Being in the Woodland Trust linked well with some of Karl's nature-themed photos that he has taken, of which he has an avid passion. The use of atmospheric piano music helped to keep a general, calm mood. This was used in the BBC's documentary at the beginning and at the end and we used similar piano music throughout our documentary in the background. 

One of the big differences between the BBC documentary and ours is that the BBC used a lot of their own previous footage to help tell the story as Sir Captain Tom Moore was very famous during the Covid-19 pandemic for his inspirational charity work. Our contributors were also inspirational in that Karl, was not only a mature student on the photography course at UCA Rochester, but was also happy to speak about his views on diversity, especially as one of his daughters, that was interviewed, is openly transgender. In my opinion, having Sir Tom's daughter, Hannah, talk about him as a father, is quite similar to Lewie talking about his dad and introduces an emotional element to the documentary. 

Whilst Zoe and Zara are not related, they have known each other since Zara was two when she attended Maidstone Dance Studios for the first time. Before the pandemic, Lewie commented on our documentary saying that Karl would normally be rushing around, stressed doing the school run, and that the pandemic changed his outlook and made Karl become more positive and focused on family life. At MDS, Zoe maintained her positivity by adapting the ways in which she continued to teach online on Zoom and social media. Captain Sir Tom, inspired millions of people, including the Queen by his selfless actions and many people have followed his good example, raising millions of pounds for charity. In fact, one of Captain Sir Tom's famous sayings is: "Tomorrow will be a good day" (Rogers, 2021). In conclusion, the impact of both of the documentaries show examples of goodness and positive attitude despite a global crisis. 

His family even started a charity called 'The Captain Tom Foundation', who celebrate the great achievements of Sir Captain Tom, they state on their website: "Captain Tom united the nation and gave hope when it was needed most. The Captain Tom Foundation has been set up to ensure Tom’s message of hope becomes a lasting legacy. It supports causes that were close to Captain Tom's heart and remain dear to his family, these include: combating loneliness, championing education and equality, continued support for the wonderful NHS. This spring, as restrictions begin to lift, we are focusing some of our work on mental health". (Moore, 2021) This shows how much impact that Sir Captain Tom has made on the world in such a hard time.

References:

Moore, T. (2021) Inspiring hope where it is needed most. At: https://captaintom.org/ (Accessed on 18/05/2021)

Rogers, J. (2021) WORDS OF WISDOM Captain Tom Moore quotes – What inspirational words did NHS fundraising hero leave us with?. At: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13950581/captain-tom-moore-inspirational-quotes-words/ (Accessed 16/05/2021)

Inspirational People: Covid-19 Project Evaluation

From this unit, I have gained so much knowledge from what I previously knew before I started this project. From learning how to properly produce a fictional short film and go through the filming process to learning how to edit sound when filming outside as this documentary was the first thing that we’ve filmed properly because of the pandemic. Throughout this project, I have gained skills from communicating with clients to booking locations and that has been enhanced through the process of filming this documentary.

Researching was the first step in this documentary. Using the knowledge that I've learned from watching my documentaries that I had chosen to analyse; I had a discussion with my team, and we came to a general consensus as to what we wanted our documentary to look like. We wanted some calming, relaxing piano music to put in the background of the documentary to make the audience feel inspired. We took the inspiration from this from the Captain Sir Tom’s documentary that I analysed before filming. We attempted to try out different camera angles for our b-roll footage to engage the viewer and keep them interested and from this I think it worked very well. 

In this unit, I had many challenging roles that I was chosen for, these were: producing, Covid supervising and editing. This was a challenge for me as I had to take on these different roles. In my opinion, producing was the hardest role to take on because I had to deal with unexpected change in locations and changes in the schedule. I had to work around the client’s schedule as well as our own and tried hard to make them feel comfortable and willing to help us film the project.

With the contributors, we wanted them to be inspirational and have impacted on a few people during this hard time. One of them that we wanted to use did not want their face or voice to be recognisable on the final edit, which we then decided on that it might be a bit of a challenge to film so we didn’t film with them. 

When it came to filming, one of the members of my production crew could not make it to the shoot in the park so I had to be director for that shoot, unexpectedly, but luckily with the support of my team we managed to get over that obstacle quite quickly and I filled in for their role. In the post-production phase, we had a problem with the audio as it was very quiet and hard to pick up the audio, this might have been because we had problems with the clip microphones as we didn’t know how to sort them out as they were being very unreliable, so we ended up using the Boom microphone to pick up the sound and I had to increase the decibels of the clips in the editing phase which made the audio go a bit unclear but I managed to try and tidy it up the best I could in editing.

If we had more time to complete this unit, we would have planned a bit more with what days we were filming so everyone on the crew can attend the shoots, we would film the interviews again and we would work out how to work the microphones. We would consider interviewing inside rather than outside so that the issues with the noise of the wind would be removed. Even though this unit was very challenging for my group, I am very happy with the final product and I am really happy with how well we, together, worked as a team.

Test Shoots - Inspirational People: Covid-19

Provided below are the test shots of where we filmed at, at the Woodland Trust in Bearsted, along with an additional part of TWT that we could of used but we didn't as we were worried that it would have too many people around that area. Also below, I took a picture of the map and marked the locations we could of and did used with an X. Because of the COVID restrictions, we were not able to do a test shoot before recording, so we do not have any test footage of the documentary, if there wasn't any restrictions then we would have done the test shoots 2 to 3 days early before the main filming days.

Content Research - Inspirational People: Covid-19

Zoe Harrisis

According to her Maidstone Dance Studios profile it says: 

Zoe trained at Dance College Whitstable formally known as The Deborah Capon College where she gained all 4 teaching qualifications in ISTD Ballet, Modern, National & Tap. Zoe then went on to further her teaching at many schools in the Kent area including Maidstone Dance Studios. In 2013 she joined Tap Attack and was successful in competing with Team GB at the IDO World Tap Championships for 2 years bringing back many Gold medals. She has most recently completed her Licenciate qualification and is now studying for her Fellowship. The natural progression of taking over the school from her mother happened in 2018. The school continues to grow and Zoe loves to see how her students continue to progress long after graduating from the school. Zoe is passionate about her students and strongly believes in upholding the ethos of the school with an emphasis on creating a safe, fun and nurturing environment.

She is definitely the right fit for the documentary as she has had very positive reviews from the people in my area as my sister used to do modern dancing at MDS and Zoe was her teacher.

Karl Fletcher:

I found Karl on our Rochester UCA Facebook group, and saw that he posted a lot of pictures that he had been working on. He is a first year at UCA and is studying Photography at Rochester part-time. In his own words he says:

"Had no idea I could even take photos until I used the medium for when I do drag. Until November 2019 I had never even used a proper camera before. Lockdown happened and I just had the urge to document it but everyone was doing it so I decided to keep myself sane I going to just do it my way and hope people will get it. And I learnt along the way and that’s what I did and it worked. I am dyslexic and have nerve damage to right leg and have a neurological stimulator implanted in my back to stop constant pain. I am a dad of 3 girls, one of the girls is transgender I am also divorced but the girls live with me mostly. Maddie is 18 years old, she is the reason I even did something, with the way I see things, she has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome which means that her skin is more fragile and she bruises and cuts herself easily. Ellie is 15 years old, she is autistic and has a rare chromosome disorder, she is the muse for my anxiety photography pieces and characters. Lewie is 13 years old, he has ADHD and a chromosome disorder, he is the muse behind my mental health and gender bending photography pieces. Lewie is transgender, female to male."

Pre-Production Paperwork - Inspirational People: Covid-19

Pre-Production Paperwork

This link provided shows all of the paperwork filled in the pre-production stage. All of the paperwork was completed fairly quickly with some changes made in the production stage. The ex-student that was planned to be at the shoot at the Dance Studios, called Milly O'Shea, was not able to take part because of family reasons. Luckily, Zoe provided us with another person to interview which is who we used in the final product, called Zara Gunner. We also had to interview Emily Gibson, the current student, over Zoom as her schedule was too busy to be filmed at, at the Dance Studios.

On the day of recording, Maddie Fletcher, Karl's daughter, was unable to be in the shoot as she started to feel unwell, so she wasn't filmed. Fortunately, we still had Lewie, Karl's transgender, female to male, son to film so I didn't include Maddie's consent form because of this reason.

Sync Assembly Workshop - 10/5/21

 

In this workshop, Sam taught us about the importance of a transcript when in the post-production phase of our project and he also taught us how to read and follow the transcript when editing on Premiere Pro. The footage shown above was the edit that I managed to put together following the transcript that was given to us. I decided to add the audio effect known as 'Exponential Fade' to smooth the cuts of the audio I had to piece together. The company, Soundsnap, specifically a filmmaker/video editor called Jason Brandel, the author of this website article, agrees with me saying that it is: "great at smoothing out cut-up dialogue. Because of its curve, it allows for a smooth transition before, between, and after individual words and syllables." (Brandel, 2019)

A transcript is a script that can help when editing to piece the final product together, Louise Tapia, the CEO of Take 1, a transcription metadata company that provides transcripts, access services, translations, and post-production scripts to production companies, studios, localisation vendors and networks across the globe, describes a transcript as: "A 100% accurate word-for-word account of a movie, documentary or online video and is a crucial element to the smooth running of the post-production process." (Tapia, 2017).

With the amount of time we have to complete this unit, unfortunately, we wouldn't have enough time to write a transcript for our documentary, so we will be following our script in the post-production phase.

References:

Brandel, J. (2019) 5 Tips for Editing Audio in Premiere. At: https://www.soundsnap.com/blog/5-pro-tips-for-editing-audio-in-premiere/ (Accessed 10/05/21)

Tapia, L. (2017) The Importance of Transcription in Post Production. At: https://www.raindance.org/importance-transcription-post-production/ (Accessed 10/05/21)