Pre-Production: Documentary Research- Reported Missing

'Reported Missing' is a British documentary following case of missing person from police footage and interviews. It lead the audience through the real stories from the first 999 call through to the end where the story concludes. This documentary series is fully engaging and keeps you interested to keep on watching more and more episodes. There is usually a twist, as with most investigations where the story is heading one way, then evidence finds it goes another. This series is something that is very much an inspiration to our own project and I feel the way it is shot and edited is particularly interesting.

Interviews:

Something I found strange when watching this was the way interviews were shot. They would typically consist of two main shots. One close up, and the other wide. But the way it was shot wide really trapped my attention the most. They always leave a lot of head room and I wasn't entirely sure why this was the case. 

"Peoples heads, and in close ups their eyes, are usually positioned about a third of the way down form the frame, to either left or right of centre. Too Much "headroom" (the space between the top of someones head and the top of the frame) looks awkward and ammiturish to most viewers. Unless you're shooting a static interview, the headroom will change as your subject moves towards or away from the camera" (Barbash and Taylor, 1997: p.g.97)

This is clearly not an ammeter project so there must be strong motive for why this was done. It isn't made clear, Aoife Carey the director/producer hasn't said why. I believe this is open to interpretation and and interpret it as establishing the surroundings of each person and where they are without the inclusion of establishing shots. We know where they are without wasting screen time in establishing a location for each person. I personally find this really effective and as DoP for my project I would like to take inspiration from this. I would just need to be careful that it doesn't look amateurish. 

Close Up Shot where head is cut off

Wide shot where background takes most of the shot and leaves a lot of headroom. 

The following shot here of the police officer doesn't have a dramatic amount of headroom, and the subject is to the right of frame. This breaks conventions of Rule of Thirds. The subject can be positioned on the right if they are facing left. But in this instance he is positioned right and facing right. Once you look at the person there isn’t a clear path to move your eyes to next. The subject’s eyes aren’t leading you anywhere and because they are to the right, and there is a lot of empty space without which is out of context. If this was a typical interview the police officer would be positioned left which if it was to conform with convention it wouldn't be much of a statement. But somehow this shot still works. "The RULE OF THIRDS is a commonly used guideline for helping with composition in photography and videography. The basic principle is to divide your image into thirds horizontally and vertically. These lines and their intersections act as guidelines for where to position important compositional elements in your frame." (VideoKnowHow, 2018). The key lighting here is off as well which isn't very professional. 

A strange positioning where the subject is placed to the right. Typically in interviews, the subject is towards the left.

The Structure

The structure of 'Reported Missing' is made to tell a story, and the thing I notices as being key here was access.  "If subjects are not willing to let you into their lives in a meaningful way over a period of months or more, including repeated interviews, you won’t be able to capture the unfolding story of your main characters in a way that permits audiences to identify with them." (Videomaker, 2018)

References:

Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and ...By Ilisa Barbash, Lucien Taylor (1997, The regents of the university California)
Page 97

VideoKnowHow. (2018). Rule of Thirds. [online] Available at: https://www.videoknowhow.co.uk/rule-of-thirds/ [Accessed 5 Nov. 2018].

Videomaker. (2018). How to Gain Access in Documentary Production - Videomaker. [online] Available at: https://www.videomaker.com/article/c06/18356-how-to-gain-access-in-documentary-production-0 [Accessed 5 Nov. 2018].