Documentary Unit: Critical Evaluation 'Are We Numb?'

After finishing out documentary I can confidently say its been a success. Looking back over my early blog posts when talking about the initial idea and our pitch, its safe to say its gone roughly as planned. We were incredibly pleased with the way our filming went after all the hard work and time we put into pre-producing ensuring some really good interviews and shoot locations.

Our interviewees were perfect for our piece, and really brought the documentary together in reaching a successful final conclusion for our presenter. Artist Shahak Shapira is well known for his opposition to extremism and his website “Yolocaust” where he photoshopped pictures of people taking selfies or inappropriate pictures at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. People had been taking pictures of themselves doing Yoga or Juggling whilst some teens had been jumping over the concrete slabs, one even captioning his picture “Jumping on dead Jews”. His website was visited over 2.5 million times, making his project viral. Being able to get such a recent, well credited artist on board to talk to us for our project was inspiring and set us a good stating ground for the rest of the documentary. Our next interviewee, David Glenwright is a social media expert, working as the Head of Training at JC Social Media, with a background in War Studies.  Davids knowledge and education makes hm one of the best experts in the business. When filming his interview, I couldn't help but take a genuine interest in all that h was saying, and his theories such as the 'gaming theory' were interesting. I wish we could've included more of his interview in the documentary as it would be interesting, however, some buts were more relevant than others and with a ten minute time frame, it would be very difficult to have time for everything else. We also did experience some sound problems with a radio interference with the clip mics, which turned out David had accidentally left his phone on. Also there was some background noise as we filmed around a working environment where people were walking around and talking. Despite this it eventually came out say with little interference, but still wasn't perfect. Getting the chance to recce the location first would help but because it was so far away and we are working to a short time period, it was difficult to do so. Luckily we were able to work with and around this, and have it not affect our documentary badly at all. 

Other great interviews which brought in the opinions of real holocaust survivors. We wanted them right from the start, and they weren't easy to get hold of. I phoned and emailed around numerous places in the hope of getting hold of some but either achieved a 'no' or no reply at all. My luck changed when I came across 'Jewish Care' who had no only one survivor willing to talk but a group of them. We ended up interviewing three in total;Zigi Shipper, Miriam Freedman and Solomon (Sam) Freiman. This were some of the most fundamental interviews in the documentary. Ziggi spent 5 and a half year in different concentration camps, Miriam was in hiding during the holocaust to avoid capture and Sam was taken to several concentration camps. Unfortunately due to limited air time, we couldn't include Same interview. He spoke a lot about his story, which was truly eye opening and heat breaking. However, in terms of relevance to our documentary, he gave a great interview, but because Ziggi and Miriam covered more of what we were asking, so we just decided to use them for the final cut.  

The final interview we recorded and actually got on board was Christoph Kreutzmüller is the curator for the permanent exhibition at the 'Judische Museum' in Berlin. We originally planned to interview someone from the Imperial War Museum, and we had a set date and they agreed to take part very obligingly, even agreeing to let us film inside their exhibition. However, they unfortunately dropped out on us as they didn't feel they would really benefit from the documentary. This was definitely a setback for us, but we didn't let it hold us back. When we found we could speak to the Jewish Museum, and film inside it we were very happy. In terms of the camera, sound and interview setup this was our best interview. By the time we came to film this we were so use to the setup procedure and our individual roles we managed a quick setup, with a great outcome. If I was to do this again, I would practice documentary interviews even more just so it becomes so fluid and a second nature to us. Although we had practice interview setups and a practice documentary shoot when filming at 'The Historic Dockyard';
See:
http://georgewing42.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/documentary-interview-test-shoot.htm, http://georgewing42.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/documentary-unit-historic-dockyard_29.html.

I still feel the more practice the better. The fact that we were unable to recce half our locations given the were either in Berlin or too far away in the UK (Birmingham), made it more difficult to practice, we just had to hope luck was on our side.

Some of our worst footage but best coverage came from the holocaust memorial. Because we weren't allowed to use tripods and had to film there handheld, the quality suffered a little. However, the shots of people running around and interviewees there were excellent. We had a mixture of people who didn't realise where they were, and saw the memorial as a tourist attraction and inviting place to sit down with some who found people running around and humping across it disrespectful. We went around finding people sitting on and taking 'inappropriate' pictures at them mortal to get peoples opinions and to see if they know where they are or even think to consider what they're doing. The interviews are interesting and very insightful to the overall structure of the documentary, and are referred to throughout during interviews.

If we were to improve our documentary interviews in any way I would say that we could've considered getting an interview with the artist who designed the Holocaust Memorial and finding out what his vision was. However, after researching I've found that he has left it up to the publics interpretation. It would still be interesting to know how he feels or if he even has an opinion of people taking these pictures or sitting/standing on top of the memorial. 

I feel we could improve a little on some of the voiceovers, as we were given some constructive feedback to improve them. When we met Zoe for our fine cut, she suggested that in laces we could include more and that at one point we say the word 'project' twice too close to each other. However, when touching up on sound me and Gavin found a way to fix this. We began by cutting the voiceover word 'project' so it just said 'holocaust'. However, you could still tell it needed continuation as he talks quickly and each word blended into each other. We found a previous take where Kamran say's 'yololocaust' clearly and inserted that and to our amazement it flows perfectly, and isn't noticeable at all. We're all still pleased with the results and have found them to still be effective in the final cut. I wish we were told earlier in the documentary unit to record voiceovers at the very end as we hadn't previously worked on documentaries before and didn't realise. However, we have all learned from it for next time, which is all part of the creative process. 

When filming, I wish we could've used the drone to get some establishing shots and GV's; especially for the Berlin Memorial. However, we were unable to given the strict drone flying laws, and after asking the memorial, they didn't want us to do so. We worked around this so they weren't detrimental to the piece, but they definitely would've enhanced its aesthetic look.

In conclusion I would label this project as a success. We've had some challenging targets, and testing setbacks, but all this has made our work a greater achievement. We've managed to find a niche, completely original documentary idea, and gone out to make it. Although some areas may be lacking and not one hundred percent perfect, its been a great experience for me and I've learned a lot. As a group we worked really well together, which was all down to our communication and interesting ideas. Although at times we haven't always seen eye to eye, we've discussed and found agreeable solutions to elements in our project and all this has worked to our advantage.