Evaluation

For our documentary we aimed to prioritise the arrangement of the dialogue to form a structure that constituted the understanding of the traders situation, this structural decision would continue to serve as an informative basis with pragmatics of empathy in which the audience later derive. Initially we created a transcript to aid our decision of which dialogue we would utilise rather than organising the footage in Final Cut Pro, we found that the ease of arrangement worked in our favour as the script could be modified quickly using basic copy and paste commands. Also the continuous reading of the written dialogue allowed us to remember quotes making the process more efficient, however watching the footage back in Final Cut Pro in the way it was originally organised we felt that certain quotes were unnecessary and that the structure lacked an emotional semantics. With this in mind we formulated a new arrangement, this new layout of dialogue allows the audience to perceive the traders overall opinion of the new market subsequently we added sufficient dialogue of when the traders were reminiscent of the market as they knew it in their youth and early days of trading. Prior to this development of structure we devised a brief listing of questions that we would ask the contributor, the questions were open ended to gain an emotional and detailed response, because we had asked very few questions we were able to easily categorise their responses which would later develop to be sections in our documentaries structure we could relate one contributors response to another, in particular the social aspect of the market.

The notion of vox pops or the 'talking head' aesthetic was to be avoided, though the issue followed the situation of the traders we would subject the viewer to various relational cutaways, notice that we have placed footage of the traders shop before seeing a shot of their face this was used to avoid an abrupt confrontation, the cutaways provide the viewer with understanding where the trader works, once these cutaways were allocated we used brief text to inform the audience of their profession/job. The text was created using Photoshop we felt the text tool in Final Cut Pro provided insufficient flexibility, our inspiration for the text came from a screen shot of a 1950's film, we used the same type face for the documentaries title seen after the opening sequence and the previously mentioned contributors titles/professions. The font colour for the titles (white) was chosen as it had a greater contrast in comparison to the other possible colour black, all titles would be coloured the same to retain a polished aspect. In respect to the “Castle Market Sheffield” title we intended to promote a quintessential introduction of antique 1950's tactility therefore we adjusted the freeze frame from the tracking shot accordingly, we introduced grain, varied contrast and most obviously making it black and white, we added an outer glow which surrounded the text embedding it into the background, drawing away from the crisp aesthetic of modern typography. The idea of the freeze frame fading into the vintage black and white version serves as both an intriguing use of typography and a basis indicative of semiotics available for the audience to decipher. The conventions inherent in the fading sequence suggest; the market over its period of existence hasn't become greatly altered in terms of structural integrity, the layout remains similar to that of its original status and the traders attitudes have preserved the foundations of its entity. Despite this intent of preservation the decrease in business has forced areas of the market to deteriorate which is evident in tracking shots later in the film, we feel these semiotics are implied through the fade to black and white.

Though at the early stage of our timeline dialogue arrangement we felt the order generated a interesting emotional and informative arc, we felt the cutaways layered over the dialogue as well as the opening sequence of vintage photographs/cutaways felt tedious, to overcome this we discovered an inspirational 1950's music track on the website “freemusicarchive.org” adding this to the timeline complimented the cutaways giving them an instant stimulation of 1950's nostalgia. Due to the opening sequence consuming a prolonged length of the documentary allowing the audience to hear a vast majority of the song by "Spade Cooley & the Western Swing Dance Gang Feat. Tex Williams" we decided that another song would be needed to establish a change in pace during a later section of the documentary, which depicted the traders readying their vacant stalls in the early hours of the morning the slower pace of the music track suggests a lonesome atmosphere presenting a period of time where the audience can reflect on what the contributors have previously discussed. Each of the two tracks that we downloaded from the website were in the format of mp3, to make these compatible with Final Cut Pro we converted them in iTunes to WAV format resulting in a highly compatible file type.

From the outset we discussed the idea of using photographs from the market at its pinnacle, the photos that we obtained which are seen at the opening sequence of the documentary are from the Sheffield City Library, initially we sighted the images on www.picturesheffield.com. Due to the financial circumstances of being s student we were only able to obtain a total of four images as we would have liked to have had the option of choosing from a collection during the editing stages rather than making a quick decision that we might later regret. Also because a vast amount of the photographs archived by the Sheffield City Library were under copyright protection our primary choices weren't able to be obtained without paying a heavy fee thus narrowing our selection. To tackle the issue of having a scarce collection of images we zoomed in on the photographs to frame a new image generating a total of three new photos per image, the high resolution of pixels allowed us to avoid extensive pixelation, though the quality of the new images isn't perfect they are lucid enough without noticing an excessive quality difference. Overall the positive aspects outweigh the downside to our reframing, we had chosen to use three intervals of voice over during the sequence of vintage photographs which describe the fundamental elements of the market both from the contributors past experience and its current social status in modern day Sheffield, these images serve to resinate a strong feeling of nostalgia early so that the audience can become an active viewer subjecting their empathy for the traders facing financial difficulty. If we were to adapt the opening sequence we would either cut down the amount of dialogue from each of the traders or remove the less intriguing contributor voice over, currently as its stands the tonal montage does feel slightly overwhelming.

Even though our schedule of production for the documentary followed a committed work ethic problems are unforeseeable, in our case we hadn't left sufficient time for the sound editing and so had to compromise the colour correction stage resulting in neglected shots. We would have liked to have tried out various techniques, the idea of using a washed out pastel colour palate to promote a dated aesthetic, or possibly a yellow tint to encourage the same idea. Though we hadn't used colour correction to help convey the inherent themes of the market we had adjusted the blown out whites or non white balanced shots to an adequate appearance using the three way colour corrector, this was also done for the shots that evoked a reddish haze again adjusting the colours accordingly. Though a vast majority of the footage could be corrected the interview with Nick was unable to be improved as the strong luminous strip light in the right hand corner couldn't be altered, this could have been avoided by interviewing him in a different area of his shop with less light pollution, to partially overcome this concern we utilised cutaways of relative footage avoiding a lengthy vox pop.

In terms of sound design the sound track would always be faded down to a low level to avoid a conflict within the mix creating a smooth unnoticed transition. We relied on the dialogue to carry the pace of the documentary in the sections that didn't contain a soundtrack as we were confident the audience appreciate the information. However a problem concerning the layering of the atmos and dialogue was encountered during the sound editing phase, due to both recordings sharing the ambience of conversing customers the fade became a cluttered mix of incongruous commotion, to overcome this we kept the atmos track at a reserved level to avoid a abrupt change in background acoustics, the fade would happen quickly on the cut rather than prolonging the transition.

Our small group consisting of only myself and my partner Henry proved to benefit all aspects of the documentaries execution, aside from having to carry a large amount of gear. We shared a clear concept of the film in early stages of its production both strongly agreeing on the use of tracking shots to illustrate the charismatic elements in particular the markets isles. We both took control of the camera as our knowledge and understanding remained on a comparable level, however Henry tended to shoot the majority with me gathering all aspects of the audio. The editing was structured together, though we did have conflicting views concerning certain elements of the film our diligence resulted in quickly resolving the contrasting opinions. Taking inspiration from the short film concept “Sea Change” the attitude towards our production has been conceptualised thusly in respects to the long tracking motions encapsulating the ubiquitous features of the market mentioned previously, much like how “Sea Change” captures the transcending seasonal change.

“The voice of documentary speaks with all the means available to its maker. These means can be summarised as the selection and arrangement of sound and image, that is, the working out of an organising logic for the film. This entails, at least, the following decisions: (1) when to cut, or edit, and what to juxtapose or how to frame or compose a shot...” B, NICHOLS. (2001) Introducing Documentary. Indiana. Indiana University Press. This statement made by Bill Nichols advocates the idea of how documentary makers subject their raw footage to a process of conscious decision making in order the conceive a theme or present the footage in a more intriguing manor to represent an overall “voice”. With this theoretical understanding we were able to practise such ideas within our own film during the editing stages, we made thoughtful decisions regarding when to cut such as; when to change the pace and what genre of the music would aid our audiences understanding of the inherent theme we were identifying. We also considered this framework when devising a pragmatic title sequence which presents codes and conventions through the use of colours and transitions, this consideration resinates a strong semantic importance much like the use of archived photographs combined with voice over to foster the audiences empathy, again another rudimentary film making decision in terms of organising the logic: B.Nichols “(4) Whether to use archival or other peoples footage and photographs or only those images shot by the film maker on the spot”.